It is inside the Cedar Valley Humane Society in Cedar Rapids you will find animals in need of forever homes. Among those who lend a helping hand includes community programs managers Ken Allers and Hannah Holt.

"We depend on donations," said Allers.

Both of these animal lovers will tell you, running a no-kill shelter is not cheap, especially when it has been a busy year.

"We had a pretty tough year this year," said Holt. "We’ve taken in quite a few more animals than normal."

2018 has also come with it of blessings too. Just ask, Jim Rogers, he is a systems analyst for a Cedar Rapids rubber products company called ESP International. Rogers also helps run the company's charitable foundation.

"All the company employees vote on it and whoever wins is our charity of the year for the following year," said Rogers.

Their choice for 2018, you guessed it, was the Cedar Valley Humane Society. ESP's vice president of North American sales Mark Hunt says they spent all year raising money for them through myriad different fundraisers.

"Not all of the fundraising is with the company but it is all driven by employees of the company getting out and doing things," said Hunt.

Those who work at the Cedar Valley Humane Society say time was not just spent volunteering to raise funds by the folks at ESP International as many would also stop by to assist the organization itself in person too.

"They normally had three to four people that would come here that would work on site cleaning up our landscaping," said Allers.

In all, ESP International employees donated $20,000 to the Cedar Valley Humane Society.