TRUCKEE - The staff and volunteers of the Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe were overwhelmed to learn that Ruth Frishman, who recently died of cancer, had left the organization approximately $500,000 from her estate.

"She's been a great supporter of ours for a long time. She's adopted (animals) from us and (her gift) was really just amazing," said Stephanie Hiemstra, Humane Society executive director. "We had no idea that was going to happen."

And while the money was unexpected, Frishman's gift came at an excellent time for the organization, which is starting the process of planning and fund-raising for a regional, no-kill shelter for homeless animals.

"The Ruth Frishman donation has not accelerated (the shelter building process)," Hiemstra said. "We won't actually receive any of the money for probably about a year ... and by that point we certainly hope to be well under way with a capital campaign.

"One of our focuses for this summer is getting it organized and getting it going. Ideally, we'd love to be able to start building sometime in 2007."

But while the impact of Frishman's donation won't be felt immediately, her gift came with a challenge to both the town of Truckee and the local Rotary clubs to match her level of support in getting a shelter built. And that, Hiemstra said, could be huge.

"We have a lot of big ideas and big plans, and if Rotary or the town or whomever steps up and really helps out, I have no doubt that we're going to have a state-of-the-art facility," she said.