ADVOCACY: Recognizing Alicia Rose Williams WRITTEN BY: BRIAN FOSTER, Publisher
One winter day in 2015, I got a very enthusiastic email from a girl who wanted to have her rescue at our Eat, Drink & Rescue Event the upcoming January. Lowcountry Dog was just getting back on its feet under new ownership and this was our first event we had planned for the local rescues. I had never heard of this rescue nor this girl despite being fairly active in the rescue community for 6 years. The rescue’s name was Eunoia Rescue and they had formed just a few months earlier. I looked up the name and saw that it meant “Beautiful Thinking” before looking up the founder and found it to be a recent college graduate named Alicia Williams. Unfortunately, the event was already planned and we had no room for another rescue but her persistence landed us at a lunch meeting one weekend. I brought Peanut, our chief canine officer, along and a girl with green hair showed up with a pit bull named Happy Face. Alicia told me all about the rescue and how she started after she graduated from Clemson the previous year. She had only pulled a few dogs at this time and was learning the rescue world as she went. I was very impressed with her conviction and dedication to saving dogs from euthanasia. Soon after that initial meeting, we were invited by the Charleston Riverdogs to participate in an event and we invited Alicia and Eunoia to tag along. Alicia was doing everything herself at this time including fostering most of the dogs at her parents home in West Ashley. She soon started getting foster volunteers and in May of 2016, her first adoption event took place at our PBR event just for pit bulls. That summer, Alicia approached us again with an idea… “What if I write an editorial
for Lowcountry Dog every issue?” Peace, Love & Real Talk was born and first published in our August 2016 Issue. This became her podium to share her opinion on some topics that needed a platform. Alicia did not pull any punches going after some Charleston institutions like The Citadel for their mascot breeding program to the Town of Summerville for supporting PetLand selling puppies. Her column has been a major part of Lowcountry Dog ever since.
