"I wonder if he's hungry. I wonder if he's shivering in the cold."
But that's all that Bourbonnais restaurateur Steve Long really can do for his son, Devon.
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If you have an animal shelter, it is most appropriate that you have a mascot.
At the Kankakee County Humane Foundation, that role falls to "bear."
Bear is a two-year old shepherd/pitbull mix that was adopted by shelter director Laura Webber and her husband Andy, of Herscher. Bear was a frozen found puppy when he was taken in. Now appropriately he's lap dog in Sunday afternoons, watching the Bears play. The couple and their six-year-old son Riley also have cats Cubby and Sox. There is, however, no hockey- or basketball-themed pets.
But there are plenty of pets that need to be adopted, and lots of touching stories at the shelter, which is located at 2214 S. Illinois Route 1, St. Anne. The building was once a fruit stand and has been used as a shelter for 30 years now. The Humane Foundation and the groups the preceded it now date back 50 years.
The Gift of God Street Church in Kankakee took a leap of faith when it closed its lucrative thrift shop in March to start housing homeless women and children there. The mission had served only men for years, providing food and shelter in exchange for tough love and the Bible.
Now, it serves both men and women, but the change has brought the mission perilously close to running out of money.
"We're really in trouble," said the Rev. Ed "Street Ed" Kannapel, who runs the Gift of God Street Church's shelters and serves as its pastor. "If we closed, they'll all be back out on the street."
To make ends meet, the mission reopened the thrift shop on Monday, moving the women's shelter to a smaller space upstairs at its North Fifth Avenue facility. Kannapel said the thrift store still has "warehouses" full of inventory since it closed but has been missing the $3,000 in monthly income it provided.
