Jeff Cunningham, Springfield Animal Protective League Events Coordinator and Community Outreach Manager shares how to get your team signed up for APL Trivia Night Friday November 14th. This event is one of the most important fundraisers each year for this Sangamon County shelter which provides love and care to more than 2,000 animals every year.
The Animal Protective League is a non-profit 501c(3) organization dedicated to caring for ill, injured and abused homeless animals and coordinating the adoption of those animals by responsible pet owners. It further is committed to ending companion animal overpopulation by offering high-quality, low-cost spay/neuter services.
Transcripted by AI with human editing for readability.
Steve Michaels:
I'm Steve Michaels. This is Community Voices on NPR Illinois 91.9 UIS. A good friend of mine, we refer to each other as Big Steve and Big Jeff, is Jeff Cunningham with the Animal Protective League of Springfield and Sangamon County, the event coordinator and community outreach manager. It's good to see you again. You always have so much going on to help dogs and cats and adoptive families of pets here in Sangamon County. It's great that you're back. I'm glad to see you.
Jeff Cunningham:
Thank you, Steve. I appreciate you having me here today and appreciate you taking the time to talk about APL.
Steve Michaels:
It's not just about the dogs and cats, but the families, and the volunteers at APL. One of the biggest fundraisers of the year is coming up, doggy sleepover events, which I've never heard of, we'll find out more about in just a few minutes. A great opportunity for families to make a difference over the holidays with dog sleepovers. I love this. Another, trivia night, is coming up Friday night.
Jeff Cunningham:
This is going to be the Animal Protective League's fall, Addams Family themed trivia night, Friday, Nov. 14. Doors open at 6 p.m., and the event runs from 7 to 10 p.m.
Steve Michaels:
I've gone to trivia nights. This is one of the best run trivia events that I've ever been to. The questions are very well researched. There's not a lot of controversy. Some people get pretty hopped up if they think their answer is wrong.
Jeff Cunningham:
People are serious about their trivia.
Steve Michaels:
And the food is just terrific at the Knights of Columbus. That pizza, where do they get their pizza out there?
Jeff Cunningham:
They make it right there. Chef Josh makes it right there in the kitchen.
Steve Michaels:
Oh, boy. If you're not doing the trivia, come out for pizza. Explain how trivia works for APL on Friday night. This is out on the west side.
Jeff Cunningham:
Right. This is at the Columbian Grand Hall, 2200 South Meadowbrook Road. This is the Casey's Pub, if you're familiar with that side of town.
Steve Michaels:
So it's Friday night, Nov. 14. What time do doors open?
Jeff Cunningham:
Doors open at 6 p.m. Trivia will start at 7 p.m. sharp, and it will go until 10 p.m.
Steve Michaels: If you're a trivia buff, you may want to skip over everything that Jeff's talking about and sign up now. What's the easiest way to get a table?
Jeff Cunningham:
You can sign up for trivia at apl-shelter.org. Look for the events tab, click on that, and you'll have a pull-down tab there, and you'll see the event, fall trivia. Click on that and you'll find a link to buy tables.
Steve Michaels:
If folks haven't done a trivia night before, why is the Addams Family theme so different? What happens? These seem to be theme nights every time. You do APL trivia, I think, twice a year.
Jeff Cunningham:
Yes.
Steve Michaels:
But do trivia events usually have a theme or is this something special?
Jeff Cunningham:
All of our trivia nights do have a theme. We do a spring trivia and we do a fall trivia every year. This year in spring we did a Lilo and Stitch, which was a new Disney movie. This allows people to be inspired by the movie, to decorate their tables, to dress up. to get in the spirit of the event, of the theme. Of course, with Addams Family, there's a new movie coming out, so people will get a chance to dress up their tables, decorate their tables in that spirit of the Addams Family to win some prizes.
Steve Michaels:
Do you have to know about the movie or the characters to do well during that night or are there other categories that are random stuff that someone like me would know the answer to. There's a lot of pressure.
Jeff Cunningham:
There are always 9 rounds of general trivia, which could be anything, not just specific to the Addams Family. But there will be one round of special trivia that is focused on Addams Family trivia. The winners of that prize round, each member of this winning team, 10 people per team, they're going to get a great Pease's at Bunn Gourmet prize basket. Some great candies.
Steve Michaels:
Oh, candy! Everyone loves candy.
Jeff Cunningham:
Yeah.
Steve Michaels:
With the Addams Family trivia, you've not done anything like this before with Addams Family, right?
Jeff Cunningham:
Not with the Addams Family. We've always selected movies that are coming out. A couple years ago, we did Heroic Dogs, you know, that serve the country. We've done different movies in the past. We've done Star Wars. Every year we do, whatever the new movie's coming out, we'll try to theme one of the trivia nights after that.
Steve Michaels:
If someone is a trivia night event fanatic, what makes a good trivia night and why is yours special> In how well it's run? Or can you even identify it? Can you focus on that? Is that something you've seen from other trivia nights? You've got to have seen some organizations do some really lousy ones. You're not going to mess up that way. What do you guys do that's different?
Jeff Cunningham:
We hire a great MC, Mr. Ron Rowlett, he runs Mercury Trivia. That's his side job. He does trivia for a living. He creates these great presentations. He's a great graphic artist. He's got great graphics that you can see on the screen. He comes up with some pretty hard questions sometimes. He's very much a trivia buff, so he likes to delve into like world history a lot, World War II history, pop culture as well. He also will have audio questions, everybody likes music, so we have music questions that'll correspond with the theme of the night. I'm imagining this one's probably gonna have some monster type, Halloweeny kind of music.
Steve Michaels:
Even though it's on the Nov. 14?
Jeff Cunningham:
Yeah, it's Addams Family. It's still creepy and it's kooky. It's all together spooky. He will have some great trivia questions focused on the Addams Family. He will have 9 rounds of general trivia, and he usually starts off easy, get everybody going at first, then they'll become pretty hard. In the past, we've had tables that were tied at the end of the night, and Ron was, "That's not going to happen anymore." Because he has some great questions. You've been there. You've seen some of the answers.
Steve Michaels:
He's going to up his game then.
Jeff Cunningham:
Yeah, he's very serious about it, and he presents a really good trivia night. Ron runs this trivia out at the Creek in Chatham on Thursday nights. That's where I met him, I was really impressed with his trivia. We hired him as BRMC, and he does a great job.
Steve Michaels:
I'm Steve Michaels with Jeff Cunningham on Community Voices, NPR Illinois 91-9 UIS. Jeff is the event coordinator and community outreach manager for the Animal Protective League of Springfield and Sangamon County. They're on the north side of the fairgrounds. What programs does the money from Trivia Night support directly? What pieces of APL have the most need right now for funding?
Jeff Cunningham:
We're always in need of food and medicine for the animals. Usually a lot of these fundraisers go directly to their care. Some animals come to us with special needs. They come in, they've had trauma, and they need special care. They might need a surgery. Of course, we have a community food bank out there. We always take in donations from the public for that, but we also need money to feed our animals as well. A lot of the fundraisers go to the care of the animals.
Steve Michaels:
I've never heard the 'food bank' term used in conjunction with pets and pet adoption. It's anything you can donate that's that that's pet food related or do you have restrictions?
Jeff Cunningham:
No, the community food bank is a like a community food bank we run to help out families that are needing a little assistance.
Steve Michaels:
Oh, so it's for it's for families too that have pets. I see.
Jeff Cunningham:
We find sometimes that people will take care of their pets and not take care of themselves. This helps them feed their pets so they have more money in their pockets so they can buy groceries as well. With the community food bank, you're able to come in, if you need assistance, you can come in once a month. You can show us your ID, and no questions asked, we'll give you a bag of food to help you feed your animals. That's really popular, and it gets used quite a bit, especially in these trying times that we're in right now. We're always needing support there. As far as what you can donate, we'll take whatever. We'll take dog food, take cat food, dog treats, cat treats. We'll take bedding, blankets.
Steve Michaels:
I know volunteers on the weekends are out at PetSmart when you guys have cat adoptions. Do you have dog adoptions out there sometimes?
Jeff Cunningham:
We do. We're at PetSmart every Saturday and Sunday.
Steve Michaels:
Some of the risks I've heard that you try to prevent from happening from an adoption is a family that maybe might struggle. Or you've had a pet come back in because someone let their pet loose because they couldn't afford to keep it or feed it. Or they had to move and they had no other recourse. So, donating food or through buying tickets for a table at the trivia night helps not only adopt pets that you have there already to be adopted to new families, but helps prevent families from feeling desperate, they open the door and let their pet go wild.
Jeff Cunningham:
You're absolutely right. We're all about trying to keep animals in their loving homes and trying to keep the animals from coming into the shelters. Some shelters around the country will euthanize animals for space. We're not one of those shelters. We are a no kill shelter. We don't turn any animals away, but we are, that whole program, we are trying to keep animals in their loving homes and trying to keep the euthanasia and the number of animals in shelters way down. We're doing a really good job of that right now in Sangamon County.
Steve Michaels:
One of the biggest fundraisers of the year for Animal Protective League coming up Friday night, Nov. 14, is not just for folks who have a regular team put together. YHow many can you put on a team?
Jeff Cunningham:
Eight to 10, 10 is the max. If you don't have a table the night of the event, we'll take walk-ups and we will take individual tickets and we will pair you with other people who are single tickets. We'll make a team.
Steve Michaels:
I always found like traveling on a train or in some other setting, sitting with strangers, it's kind of fun. You get to meet some new people. Just showing up if you're interested in trivia and don't have a whole team, it will be interesting to sit with new people that you've never known before. How have those teams done in the past? Do you have any idea? The ones that are thrown together at the last minute.
Jeff Cunningham:
They've done pretty good, but there are some people who come to these trivia nights that are there to seriously compete for the prizes. There's stiff competition, but it's friendly competition. It's definitely community oriented. Everybody has a good time. A lot of good times, a lot of laughter, a lot of funny questions. It's a good time for all.
Steve Michaels:
I don't want to forget about the prizes. You've had furniture in the past that you give it away. This is terrific.
Jeff Cunningham:
There'll be cash prizes for the top two winning teams. Then of course, we have a silent auction that also is featured at the event. We also have a 50-50 drawing. There are some great items and experiences that you can win in that silent auction.
Steve Michaels:
Do you have your top two or three, whether it's silent auction or some of the other prizes that people can win this year on Friday night Nov. 14?
Jeff Cunningham:
Sure. One of the featured items Lowe's donated to APL is a giant cabana with a lawn chair. A beautiful setup. We have a set of nice outdoor lawn chairs, swivel chairs that'll be in the event. There's also an automatic robot cat litter dispenser.
Steve Michaels:
I have the automated cat food, the robo cat food feeder. I didn't know they had one for litter cleaning. Wow.
Jeff Cunningham:
That one can be pretty pricey. It's a really nice item. It looks like a big garbage bin, but it disposes everything. It's a nice item.
Steve Michaels:
Those are pet oriented. Well, you have the outdoor set. For folks who don't have pets, maybe can't have a pet in their apartment, what kind of prizes would they have available, in addition to the cash prize?
Jeff Cunningham:
There are gift cards for restaurants around town. For children, we have packages for Malibu Jack's indoor fun park. The Sky Zone trampoline place has given us some passes. We have some wine tasting for people who like to drink wine. Cooper's Hawk and All About Wine give us wine tasting prizes. There are floral baskets. There are usually tickets to see the Cardinals or the Cubs.
Steve Michaels:
If you win this, that stuff would make a great Christmas gift. Stuff you really couldn't buy anywhere else, these experiences. That's fantastic. All right, for old time's sake, I'm Big Steve...
Jeff Cunningham:
...I'm Big Jeff.
Steve Michaels:
Big Jeff, the event coordinator and community outreach manager for APL of Springfield and Sangamon County on Community Voices, NPR Illinois 91.9 UIS. With the holidays coming up, out of all the years we've known each other, Jeff, I did not know about the doggy sleepover opportunities. Is this new or has this been going on a while?
Jeff Cunningham:
It's been going on a while and it's very, very popular.
Steve Michaels:
It's fostering through having a dog spend the night.
Jeff Cunningham:
Right, it starts off as doggy day out where you come out to the APL, go through the shelter, and you see a dog. If you see a dog that you like, we gladly help you take that dog for the day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. You can take him out, show him a good time, take him to the park, take him to the drive-thru. What we get out of it more than anything is that person will relay back to us how the dog behaved and reacted in his environment. We take that information to help make a more successful adoption with people.
Steve Michaels:
That's a good point. This is not just a sales pitch. What is it going to take to put you into a dog adoption today by having the dog at home or having the dog stay the night? I've seen that information before. The dog or the cat is good with other cats or other dogs or not good with kids or... This is where you get that kind of feedback from this doggy day out?
Jeff Cunningham:
This is where we get a lot of that information. And of course, that progresses into doggy sleepover.
Steve Michaels:
This is perfect for the holidays.
Jeff Cunningham:
I love it. We do this on the holidays. We'll have extended sleepovers during the holiday of Thanksgiving, and also Christmas. People will have the dogs for a couple of days.
Steve Michaels:
Over the holidays, over Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day?
Jeff Cunningham:
Yes, and get to show the dog a good time on the holidays. It's great for the purse, for the people. It's great for the dog. It's great enrichment for the dog. It gets them out of the shelter, gives them a little stress-free environment, a little home life that they all deserve.
Steve Michaels:
With that additional information through caring for the dog, for the dog doggy day out or the doggy sleepover makes for a better match for a long-term adoption. A better success rate, I would assume?
Jeff Cunningham:
Absolutely. That's the whole idea of it. We're trying to get long-term adoptions. We don't want animals going out and coming back. We want people to know what they're getting into with animals.
Steve Michaels:
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you can't keep your pet, how can people reach you? It's so much better to work through APL than it is just open the door and let them go.
Jeff Cunningham:
Yes, never let them go. It's against the law to dump an animal.
Steve Michaels:
I didn't know that.
Jeff Cunningham:
Yes. it's a misdemeanor. Contact APL or Sangamon County Animal Control. That's the way you should go if you're going to relinquish your animal. Then we will take them and try to place them into another loving home.
Steve Michaels:
The trivia night is coming up on Friday Nov. 14.
Jeff Cunningham:
apl-shelter.org. Go to the events tab.
Steve Michaels:
I'm Steve Michaels with Community Voices, NPR Illinois 91.9 UIS. Thank you, Jeff. It's great to see you again.
Jeff Cunningham:
Thank you, Steve.
