A popular Edmonton radio host now has two little ears and eyebrows permanently on his body courtesy of his co-host, after the pair raised funds for a good cause.
Play 107’s Ryder and Lisa are known for their work with the Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society (AARCS), posting adoptable animals to their Instagram each Friday. The animal rescue organization is also where Lisa adopted her dog, Stanley.
Earlier this month, the AARCS North Haven shelter in Edmonton was broken into and robbed.
“The robbers ended up taking all their laptops, petty cash, credit card, and their van and then significantly damaged their fence as well,” Ryder explained to Daily Hive.
The van was recovered the following day, but its catalytic converter had been stolen. Insurance was able to cover much of the stolen property, but they were facing a steep deductible and a hike in their insurance premium due to the break-in.
Ryder and Lisa hatched a plan to offset some of these costs for the animal organization. For $2,500, Ryder would get Stanley tattooed onto him. For $5,000, Ryder would let Lisa take the gun and tattoo her dog on Ryder.
“They’re such a great organization, and they do so much for vulnerable animals. You know, the dollars stolen from an organization like that. I mean, those that are truly affected, at the end of the day, it comes back to the animals.”
Well, it didn’t take long for them to surpass their goal because, within an hour of pitching the fundraiser to listeners, the two had hit the $5,000 mark. By the following day, a total of $8,752 had been raised for AARCS.
“The moment we got started, I started looking and seeing the donations rolling in,” he said.
“I think that has a lot to do [with] sometimes stupid ideas like this; people want to get behind it. It comes back to AARCS being such a great organization and people really feeling for what they had to deal with.”
And he was a man of his word! With the help of Jon Squires, the Play 107 booth was transformed into a sanitized tattoo studio, and Lisa, who had never held a tattoo gun in her life, was given the go-ahead after a quick briefing on how it’s done.
You can check out the video of the tattoo process for yourself:
The result is a minimalist outline of Stanley and his adorable eyebrows.
Ryder/Play 107
“My expectations of a great tattoo were not there. But that’s kind of the appeal of the tattoo and why I like it so much. It’s raw; it’s real. It’s a little bit silly. It kind of embodies everything that our fundraiser was about.”
Ryder hopes that whoever broke into the AARCS shelter and caused them trouble sees how many people came together to bring a positive outcome out of this whole ordeal.