(COLORADO SPRINGS) — The National Mill Dog Rescue hosted a community festival, called “Festival in the Bark,” for our tail-wagging friends on Sunday, August 11, at John Venezia Community Park.

With over 15 local vendors, plenty of delicious food trucks, live music, pup and parent makeovers, carnival games, and giveaways, the family and fur-baby-friendly event had something for everyone.

“This event is really to engage the community. We’re really looking for awareness of who we are, what we do, and that we are in this local community,” said Sarah Thompson, Director of Operations. “We’re just out in Peyton outside of Colorado Springs. And so we’ve found so many people don’t even know we’re here and what we do. So we want to spread awareness.”

The festival supported the life-saving mission of National Mill Dog Rescue to rescue, rehabilitate, and rehome retired commercial breeding dogs in need. “We want to obviously show off our adorable dogs and we want to engage with the community, but also look at some fundraising for the work that we do because it isn’t very cheap to take care of some of these special critters,” said Thompson.