Site Prep for the New County Shelter is a Family Affair

“We design everything from the ground down,” is how Tilden Hilderbrand sums up the work he and his partner, Todd Hass, do as a surveying and civil engineering firm here in Aiken.

In fact, if one were to walk across Aiken County, you would be hard pressed not to cross a site that they have worked on, especially if you include Citizens Park or the tennis courts at Odell Weeks, or the more than 350 jobs they have done for the Aiken County Schools, People’s Bank, Holiday Inn, Cedar Creek, and the new Fresh Market project on Whiskey Road. 

However, it is unlikely that any undertaking in the realms of site development connects to more hearts these days than the one on the corner of May Royal and Wire Road, the site of the new Aiken County Animal Shelter.  And for Tilden Hilderbrand, it is a special labor of love. Here’s why.

Three years ago this month, eight stalwart FOTAS volunteers turned out for our very first public event, “Trick-or-Treat on Newberry Street.”  Among the new organization’s representatives were Tilden Hilderbrand’s wife, Susan, and his two son’s Alex and Seth (pictured here with our Cat-of-the-Week).

 Susan and the boy’s commitment to the adoptable animals at the County Shelter predated FOTAS.  Nearly every day after school, they took pictures of the adoptable dogs and cats and faithfully put them up on the website, Petfinder.com.  That October, 2009, the Hilderbrand boys went far beyond service to FOTAS in wearing our paper maché mascot costumes. 

FOTAS also came to rely on Susan for her creative displays of adoptable animals at events (like the Wizard of Oz), and the County Shelter signs in True Value Hardware, Stoplight Deli and Bone-i-Fide Bakery downtown.  Without her beautiful photographs, people who would never go to the shelter might not know that the animals or the shelter, were even there.

Now Tilden Hilderbrand has joined the family in service to a project more than a decade on the minds of too few who knew the need.  And when you are designing a Public Animal Shelter, “everything from the ground down,” gets at the essentials of the project.

The four-plus acre lot is a rolling woodlot, and the architect working with the county and FOTAS, was determined to keep as much of the wooded park-like feel that the project design could realistically encompass. 

Hass and Hilderbrand’s expertise will save many trees; they will determine the minimum earth to be moved; how the facility will tie into utilities; they assure the accuracy of the site footprint; and, who to see for what essential permits. 

Every single person connected with this project understands how important every dollar saved is to its ultimate success, and no one more than Hilderbrand and Hass. 

Once again, Aiken County owes a debt of gratitude to this firm, and once again FOTAS is deeply thankful to the Hilderbrand family.

Brochures depicting the new County Shelter and opportunities to contribute will be available soon.  Get excited; get involved! 

  FOTAS Volunteers work with the AIKEN COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER, 411 Wire Road.  For more information, contact “info@fotasaiken.org” or visit FOTAS on line at www.fotasaiken.org

Aiken County Animal Shelter:  “By the Numbers”

September 24^th thru 30^th   

Received: 30 dogs and 60 cats!

Adopted: 16 dogs and 4 cats

Put down: 22 dogs and 47 cats

 Aiken County Shelter “Pets of the Week!” So much LOVE for so little!

SERGIO – 1 yr. loveable Lab mix needs to go, so he is on sale for $35.  Great deal for a great dog.

MOMI (3yrs) and Tilden’s son, SETH – The cat is gorgeous.  She is yours for only $35.    

 

 

    

 

 

 *All adoption fees include: Spay/Neuter, heartworm test, all shots, worming, and microchip