- January 14, 2026
The Halifax Humane Society will be reimbursing Volusia County a total of $186,000 for using an ECHO grant-funded building as an animal shelter for pets belonging to victims of domestic violence.
In 2014, Volusia issued the Halifax Humane Society a $400,000 ECHO grant to open a community dog park and a publicly accessible pet services building, named the Lee C. & Patricia Culler Boarding and Grooming facility. Halifax Humane Society converted the Culler facility to offer limited wellness services before closing the building to the public entirely in late 2023 and using it for the domestic violence animal shelter, according to ECHO Advisory Committee meeting documents.
This violated the terms of the grant because the building was no longer accessible to the public.
ECHO Committee member Doug Pettit said he was disturbed the organization did not comply with grant requirements for a taxpayer-funded grant.
“We gave this organization taxpayer money,” he said, “and they basically just gave us a raspberry on it and said, ‘We’re not gonna comply, it doesn’t matter, we’re not going to report it. And so what if it’s taxpayer money?’ I don’t operate like that.”
Recipients of grant funding must use the funding for approved, community programs and services. The program is a voter-supported initiative that supplies tax-payer funded grants to qualifying nonprofits and quality-of-life projects, while the Advisory Committee oversees the use of those funds.
Though Halifax Humane Society initially applied for the building to be used as the crisis animal shelter for families fleeing domestic violence, it was denied because the building would not be available for public use.
The dog park opened in 2016 and has been available for public use since. However, Halifax Humane Society Chief Executive Officer Sean Hawkins emailed ECHO manager Daniel Marsh in April 2025 to inform him that the building has not been available to the public since the fourth quarter of 2023.
Hawkins told the ECHO Committee at its Jan. 6 meeting that the building was not in use when he came on board 20 months ago.
He said Halifax Humane Society had a two-year period of four CEOs. He can’t speak to decisions made by previous CEOs but he can “tell you that I was hired to come in and fix them.”
Hawkins is the one who noticed the discrepancy in the use of ECHO funds and reached out to Marsh. Following Hawkins’ email, ECHO investigated.
Hawkins said the ECHO Program is not the only grant or donation made to Halifax Humane Society that he is reviewing. He said he is working to ensure the shelter is in compliance with the donor funds and is offering to repay funds if they “have made a misstep.”
“I have been leading the organization through transformational change that includes incredible leaps forward with our transparency that were not in place previously,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins said the shelter for animals from houses with domestic violence is “desperately needed.” Neither Flagler, Volusia or Brevard County have services for animal victims in domestic violence situations, he said, though 70% of human victims of domestic violence report that they have animals in their household.
“Once those human victims are able to flee,” he said, “50% of those people have reported that the abuser has either killed or threatened to kill or injure the animal, forcing the families to stay in the abusive environment.”
Regardless, the building was committed for public use through the grant, and Hawkins has agreed to repay the $186,539.
“We are making the taxpayer whole by paying back in full the proportional amount of the grant that was expended,” he said.
The Halifax Humane Society will make four payments of $46,634.75 to the county on Jan. 1, April 1, July 1 and Oct. 1 of 2026. The money for the dog park will not need to be repaid; the park has remained open to the public and is maintained by the shelter.
