A fundraising event at the Blair Animal Shelter was abruptly canceled on Wednesday after the organizer used profane language toward volunteers and staff members, leaving some participants "visibly shaken" and crying.
The incident involved Jordan's Way, a mobile fundraising organization that travels cross-country live-streaming to help raise money for local animal shelters. During their typical livestreams, volunteers participate in messy games like pie-throwing and slime buckets.
However, the planned event at Jeanette Hunt Blair Animal Shelter was canceled when organizer Kris Rotonda was captured on the shelter's Ring camera using profane language.
"You tell that pimple-faced mother-f***** I said f*** off," Rotonda said in the recorded video.
Board member Jenny Eriksen said this moment led to the event's cancellation.
"Our goal in this was to apologize to our community for canceling the event. Apologize to our volunteers. We had some visibly shaken, crying when they left, and also just to bring awareness to other rescues out there and to know what we experienced so they don't go through it," Eriksen said.
I met Rotonda at a different fundraising event in Papillion on Monday. Friday, I spoke to him about what he said led to the outburst. He said he was offended by a text from the shelter manager and concerned by the number of volunteers the shelter provided.
"A text was sent to my scheduler saying something like, hey guys, what are you doing? Never did this before. I thought the dogs are waiting. That's not a nice message for me because that's saying to me I'm not here for the right reasons, and that's what I reacted to," Rotonda said.
He also cited what he felt was a lack of preparation from the shelter.
"When you go to a shelter, you'd better know your animals, because I can't be in that situation and I've never been where somebody was bit, attacked, because the shelters we go to know the protocol," Rotonda said.
Eriksen said this isn't the first problem they've had with Rotonda, and they even considered not bringing him back this year before the incident. However, Jordan's Way events are one of the only ways to raise thousands of dollars in just a few hours.
"It's always hard for us as a nonprofit. Jordan's Way does a great job of raising awareness, but it's hard as a nonprofit. 100% of our money always goes to our animals," Erickson said.
Other shelters have posted in support of Blair Animal Shelter, including Town and Country Animal Rescue, which also had a livestream with Rotonda on Monday.
Rotunda said the incident was a bad moment and he regrets what he said.
"I'm not immune to apologies. Like I made a mistake. Like it happens. But the mistake happened because I have a strong passion and emotion towards what I'm doing here," Rotunda said.
Jordan's Way had a fundraiser scheduled for Friday night with Bullies n Beyond, but it was canceled due to the weather. However, after seeing the Blair Animal Shelter video, they said they won't be rescheduling.
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