Submitted Photo A healthy and happy Chloe. Chloe was fostered by Elaine DeClue for 3.5 months and with the help of Timber, it was a successful rescue and foster. Timber ended up adopting Chloe, who is now healthy and her injuries have healed, and adding her to her family.
Civic-mindedness can take various forms and come in varying degrees. At its greatest degree of commitment, it is hands-on and sets aside convenience for ensuring tangible results. Elaine DeClue has practiced civic-mindedness at the greatest level and in the form of animal rescue, something she has done since childhood.
She recalls rescuing a nest of mice as a child. “My mom wasn’t too happy about that,” she said.
During her senior year at North High School, ‘72 -‘73, there was a proliferation of student clubs, among them the Junior Humane Society, with which she got involved.
In the early 1990s, she became involved with the Bartholomew County Humane Society and went to Louisville with an employee to look into Pet Finder.com, which is still the number one way for people to look for an adoptable pet. That led to DeClue’s daughter, Kelly Glick, to develop a website for the Humane Society, which is linked to Pet Finder.com
The next step in broadening local rescue efforts was a visit to a Humane Society in Wisconsin that, according to DeClue, had “at the time, the top of the line shelter in the Midwest.” Their Spay and Neuter Program was so successful that its shelter’s animal population had dramatically declined. However, it still needed to meet the demand for animals.
So DeClue and two of her friends, Nick and Julie Woolls, who now own Dog World, a local daycare, established Puppy Train, which would take southern Indiana puppies to Wisconsin. The three also founded Community Animal Rescue Effort (C.A.R.E.) in 2004 which is still a thriving organization that coordinates dog fostering and the placing of rescue dogs in permanent homes.
DeClue was president of C.A.R.E. when she decided to try wearing an entrepreneurial hat and embark into the restaurant business as a co-proprietor of Tre Bicchieri, an Italian restaurant in the heart of downtown Columbus. However, the life of a restaurateur is hard and it was a move that she readily admits involved a learning curve. Despite the hardships, Tre Bicchieri became a fixture of Columbus’ dining scene and helped to make downtown Columbus the city’s hub for cultural vitality for many years.
“My husband, Kim, and my son Ike loved downtown, and this opportunity came up,” she said. “We saw that Columbus didn’t have an Italian restaurant, and we knew Italian cuisine is easy to do if you have good ingredients. So we hired a couple of chefs and started in.”
Meanwhile, she kept the animal care ball rolling.
C.A.R.E. received a grant from the Bob Barker Foundation, Columbus native and car racing legend Tony Stewart and PetSmart, which it used to implement a low-cost Spay and Neuter Program in the community. C.A.R.E. developed a relationship with Pets Alive, a Bloomington clinic with which it still works.
“Before the pandemic, we were sending 70 to 80 animals a month,” said DeClue.
DeClue developed a number of fundraising approaches to finance the organization’s Spay and Neuter Program. One approach was setting up a C.A.R.E. booth at the downtown Farmers Market, which takes place on Saturday mornings during the warm-weather months. Tre Bicchieri also presented a number of “Spay-ghetti” dinners, with all the proceeds going to the program. She also mentored high school students who were doing senior projects related to animal rescue.
Currently, she works at the pet food pantry at Columbus Animal Care Services and drives for Canine Express, a Brown County group that takes animals to shelters that are in need. She’s made two trips to the east coast and several more to Cleveland and the Chicago area to deliver dogs as well.
She also fosters dogs. She recently found a dog named Chloe in a permanent home in Michigan with a woman who was just accepted into veterinary school. Chloe came to DeClue starving with a broken leg and mange.
In recent years, however, DeClue has been working to raise awareness for glioblastoma, a particularly devastating form of brain cancer. She has poured considerable energy into raising funds for her other son Mac, who was living in Boston when friends took him to an emergency room after he had a major seizure. A diagnosis revealed that he had glioblastoma, an incurable brain cancer. He was 30.
Mac was placed under the care of Dr. Patrick Y. Wen, a neuro-oncologist at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, which is affiliated with Harvard University. His bicycle-riding friends in Boston organized “Team Mac” to raise funds for his treatment and rode in the Pan-Mass Challenge, a bike-a-thon that raises money for charitable causes. Locally, DeClue organized two fundraisers at Harlequin Theater, a venue that offered comedy, plays and musical performances. She also raised $5,000 selling T-shirts.
What’s next?
Her husband recently retired from Cummins and they hope to do some traveling. They also have eight grandchildren in Columbus that they love to spend time with.
“There are always track meets, soccer games and golf matches to attend,” she said. “We do a lot of watching.”
She can take great satisfaction from her contributions and the legacy she’ll leave Columbus with her lifelong efforts with helping others put caring into action.
