This semester, the 7th grade High Ability Students chose to help the LaPorte County Small Animal Shelter. With the help of the Boston Staff and the LaPorte community, we were able to make this project a huge success. The project operated in three phases. Phase one started out with donations from the Boston staff and students. We asked for used t-shirts. After only a few days, we collected roughly 100 t-shirts! This may not seem like a lot, but from this amount we were able to make 66 dog toys and 127 cat toys!
After all the toys were constructed, we moved on to phase two - food collection. Students volunteered time after school for three days at the LaPorte Kroger. Thanks to the generous donations of our community, we were able to collect 18 bags (~284 lbs.) and 16 cans of dog food, 19 bags (~170 lbs) and 80 cans of cat food, 200 pounds of kitty litter, 37 bags of dog treats, 15 bags of cat treats, 168 jars of meat-flavored baby food, 46 rolls of paper towel, 5 containers of Clorox wipes, and 5 gallons of bleach, plus $120 to buy items we could not get from local stores.
The final phase of the project was the most fun – taking our donations to the shelter and interacting with the animals. On Tuesday, May 17th, students met at the shelter to drop off our toys, deliver donations, learn about how the shelter operates, and interact with the animals. We toured the shelter, specifically seeing the areas where found dogs and cats can be dropped off, the medical suite where veterinary services are performed, the kennels where the dogs and cats are kept, and the outdoor dog park, when volunteers can give much needed love to the animals, or where you can bring your own dog, provided you pick up its business!
Thank you so much to all the LaPorte community members and Boston Staff who made this amazing project such a huge success!