Rugby players lend support at Family, Fur & Fun Festival

As an added treat at today’s Family, Fur &Fun Festival, an event promoting humane education and kindness to animals, the Las Vegas Rugby Academy will provide a free rugby clinic.

The free Family, Fur &Fun Festival will run 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Exploration Park, 9700 S. Buffalo Drive, in the Mountain’s Edge master-planned community.

In preparation for the USA Sevens’ international rugby tournament, Las Vegas Rugby Academy and Be Kind Play Rugby Foundation members are holding clinics and small games to teach rugby fundamentals.

“We want to educate the public about the sportsmanship of rugby and generate awareness for the international event taking place in our own community in February,” said Wesley Cann, sales and operations manager for United World Sports. “The outdoor Family, Fur &Fun Festival, with Exploration Park as the setting, provides a great forum for this while supporting animals in need and hopefully helping them get adopted or foster parents.”

The annual USA Sevens’ international rugby tournament in Las Vegas will be Feb. 13-15 at Sam Boyd Stadium and is the only North American stop in the HSBC Sevens World Series. It is fifth event out of nine in the series. Sixteen international rugby sevens teams will play 45 matches to gain points in the Sevens World Series standings.

Sevens, played on the same size field as traditional 15-player rugby, is played with seven players per side. Matches have seven-minute halves with two-minute intervals for pool and knockout matches.

The free Family, Fur &Fun Festival, in its eighth year, raises awareness about the importance of adopting animals in shelters, fostering animals until they can be adopted, volunteering, and spaying and neutering.

Event booths will include cat and dog adoption areas and dog agility demonstrations. Activities will include new shelter animal naming, free pet nail trimming, raffles and a pet Halloween costume contest.

There will also be refreshments and information to keep pets healthy, incorporate them into the family, include them in emergency planning and keep them safe on Halloween.

Family, Fur &Fun Festival sponsors include: Law Office of Donna Stidham LLC, Mountain’s Edge master-planned community, Aloha Animal Hospital, Amica Insurance, At Your Service Pet Supplies, English Garden Florist, NutriSource and the USA Sevens Rugby Team.

For information, visit www.familyfurandfun.com or www.mountainsedge.com, call 702-444-3713, or email info@familyfurandfun.com.

Festival attendees also are invited to tour the Mountain’s Edge master plan and its many neighborhoods by homebuilders including DR Horton, KB Home, Lennar, Pulte Homes, Richmond American Homes and Ryland Homes.

To learn about Mountain’s Edge, visit the information center at 9725 S. Buffalo Drive (corner of Buffalo Drive and Blue Diamond Road), call 702-898-5777 or visit www.mountainsedge.com.