The name suggests black ties and ballrooms, but Black Tie & Tails, the fundraiser for Mobile’s shelter animals held at Crown Hall, has always been more casual than its title. The dress code is a suggestion; the mission is not. The event was created by Sarah Clark and her team at Bay Gourmet Catering, which owns and operates Crown Hall at the corner of Broad and Dauphin Streets, and it has become one of the most effective nights of the year for the organizations that care for Mobile’s stray and surrendered animals.
The second edition of the party featured food and drink by Bay Gourmet, music by The Surfers Club, caricatures by Kathy, a silent auction stocked with unique gifts and art, and a raffle for specialty bourbons. Carson Taylor of The Southern Saturday Podcast served as MC. But the real story is what the evening funds.
A Fundraiser Born in a Kitchen
Clark and Chef Jayme Richberg have catered and hosted charity events for years, and they wanted to give back in a bigger way. Both had adopted two dogs each; Bay Gourmet’s social media director, Allyson Clements, is a devoted cat person. When they saw that the Mobile Animal Shelter needed help, they conceived a fundraiser of their own. Clements came up with the name and created the graphics, and Bay Gourmet donates the event space, all the food and drink, and the promotion, on top of helping collect auction items.
The first Black Tie & Tails raised $22,000, with 75 percent going to Friends of the City of Mobile Animal Shelter and 25 percent to the Mobile Cat Society. Sponsors underwrite the event at levels with names to match the cause, from “Leader of the Pack,” which buys a table of eight, to “Paw Print Patrons” and “Power Meowers.”
What Friends of the Shelter Does
Friends of the City of Mobile Animal Shelter has operated for about two decades, covering costs the city budget cannot. “We’ve been around 20 years and help with costs the City cannot cover,” says Anna Bush, the group’s president. “Spaying and neutering cats and dogs is the primary focus, which reduces the number of strays in our area. We also help with the medical costs of injured or sick animals and host several adoption events throughout the city.”
The numbers are substantial for a volunteer-run operation with an annual budget of about $50,000, all donor-funded. More than 500 cats and 200 dogs are cared for each year through their efforts. The organization takes only animals processed through the city shelter, works with local veterinarians on vaccine clinics that can immunize about 300 animals in two hours, hosts cat adoptions at Petco, and transports animals to other cities to widen the adoption pool. Each clinic takes about 20 volunteers, many of them students from the Alabama School of Math and Science.
The economics of rescue are unforgiving. The group works with high-volume veterinarians who can spay or neuter 25 animals a day at $100 per animal, and adoption fees roughly break even at about $100 once the necessary services are covered. Bush began volunteering in 2018 and became president in 2021; the work, she says, is about getting as many animals safely off the streets as possible.
Fostering, One Dog at a Time
Behind the institutional work are people like Debbie Metzger Stephens, a lifelong animal advocate who rescues, fosters, and recruits friends to feed feral cats. Her foster dogs appear regularly on her Facebook page, and people often ask how she can give them up after weeks of caring for them. “As hard as it is to let them go, I just consider that each of them finding a forever home gives me greater joy than keeping them,” she says.
That is the spirit the whole event runs on. Mobile’s animal welfare network, from the shelter itself to the volunteers who socialize animals before adoption, runs on exactly this kind of small, stubborn generosity.
Whether you attend in a tuxedo or a t-shirt, the point is the same: every ticket, auction bid, and sponsorship helps move Mobile’s shelter animals off the street and onto somebody’s couch. And that is a party worth attending.