WSET.com - ABC13Hopes for Dog Park Move Forward

Reporter:  Danner Evans l  Videographer:  Todd Densmore

Lynchburg, VA - With a new work week comes new hope for the folks rallying to build a dog park in Lynchburg.

The city lost an online contest to win $100,000 from PetSafe Friday, but all the people involved say this is certainly not the end.

Bodie Stone and his mom Shelley had their hearts set on winning that cash to build a dog park in Lynchburg.

"I thought the community had come together so well over the last few weeks. Everywhere you turned around you saw notes on people's cars, signs or billboards. I thought for sure we were going to win," Stone said. "When I pulled up the website and saw that we hadn't that was just a big let down."

Lynchburg lost to Huntington, WV by 13,000 votes.

But Kay Frazier, from the Parks and Recreation Department, said they aren't licking their wounds.

"Our philosophy going into it was we would win the PetSafe and build a dog park or we would lose PetSafe and build a dog park," Frazier said.

Now it's on to plan b.

"We are just gearing up and this week the Friends of the Lynchburg Dog Park will come back together with parks and rec staff, we'll pull in a few other people, then we're going to set some plans for the capitol campaign," Frazier said.

Frazier said they need to raise $70,000 for the first phase of the park. Right now she says they have about $7,000. Now they're just hoping to turn all of those online votes into dollars.

"If we get one dollar for each one of those votes we're ready to go," Frazier said.

Lynchburg Parks and Recreation Department hopes to have some sort of announcement later on this week. In the meantime, they're encouraging everyone to donate whatever they can afford.

Make a donation to Friends of the Lynchburg Dog Park.