Be a Hero, Keep Litters at Zero
GRADE | 4
LOCATION | Malvern, Arkansas
A group of 4th graders in Ms. Williams’s class in Malvern, Arkansas, are raising awareness about the importance of spaying and neutering stray dogs and cats in their community through creative events and programming. They noticed a lot of stray animals in their neighborhood and talked with someone from their local animal shelter, who explained that spaying and neutering the animals could make a key difference in the stray population.
Thus far, the group has raised over $1,200 for the animal shelter to continue spaying and neutering dogs. Their fundraiser consisted of a school-wide coin drive, and they continue to raise awareness of their project through presentations, including one to the school board. They have several more fundraising ideas in mind, like a pet-friendly Fun Run and a dog and cat-themed Bingo Night.
Be a Hero, Keep Litters at Zero
GRADE | 4
LOCATION | Malvern, Arkansas
A group of 4th graders in Ms. Williams’s class in Malvern, Arkansas, are raising awareness about the importance of spaying and neutering stray dogs and cats in their community through creative events and programming. They noticed a lot of stray animals in their neighborhood and talked with someone from their local animal shelter, who explained that spaying and neutering the animals could make a key difference in the stray population.
Thus far, the group has raised over $1,200 for the animal shelter to continue spaying and neutering dogs. Their fundraiser consisted of a school-wide coin drive, and they continue to raise awareness of their project through presentations, including one to the school board. They have several more fundraising ideas in mind, like a pet-friendly Fun Run and a dog and cat-themed Bingo Night.
We have seen a lot of stray dogs and cats running around our neighborhoods. We also know that our local Animal Shelter is at capacity and was actually closed for a time period because of staffing and budget issues. Grant's dad is a vet in our town and he also confirmed that stray animals are a problem. Cuddle Babies is a rescue in our town that helps with stray animals. We met with them and she told us that they really need funds to get the animals fixed so they will not keep reproducing more puppies and the people in our community need to be aware of ways they can help too.
We created a logo and made t-shirts and buttons with the logo, "Be a Hero, Keep Litters at Zero." We presented our idea to our peers at school, the school board, and posted it on social media. We also presented it at the Beta Leadership Summit. We set a goal to raise $2000 for Cuddle Babies Rescue to use to spay and neuter dogs. We planned a coin drive for our school. We went to each classroom and presented our idea and ways they could help. The students brought pennies on Monday, nickels on Tuesday, dimes on Wednesday, quarters on Thursday and bills on Friday. We collected all the buckets and took the change to our local bank where we were able to use their coin machine to count all the change. We raised $1293.79 in one week! We awarded the winning class with buttons with our logo and a popsicle party. We took the check to Cuddle Babies and got to help socialize some of the puppies they are taking care of. She showed us around and let us see some of the dogs that would be getting fixed thanks to our donation. We are working on other events to help raise more money to get us to our $2000 goal. Some ideas we have is a Dog and Cat themed Bingo Night, a Fun Run where people bring their dogs to run or walk, and selling our t-shirts and buttons with our logo. We also plan to make a video about why stray animals are not good for our city and how our community can help with the problem.
Our team is made up of 5 students:
Devan, Emma D, Emma H, Parker, Noah
We have all worked together on the project. We have our entire school involved as well as our community.