Results tagged “animal rescue” from Petfinder Blog

In previous weeks I've written about young recipients of Dosomething.org Animal Action Grants, including 17-year-old Amanda Smith, who is helping to save abandoned horses in Minnesota, and 10-year-old Maggie Maxwell, whose Project H.O.P.E. is raising awareness of homeless pets in Texas.

This week, meet 14-year-old Texan Hayden Whitt, who not only volunteers at his local shelter, but raises money for critical supplies and places adoption ads in local newspapers. (Read more about Hayden's project here.)

What is your project?
I organized a supply and money drive to benefit my local animal shelter. The drive yielded three truckloads of supplies, money to help care for medical attention for the shelter animals and money to help fund ads for pet adoptions.

How did your passion for animals start?
My family and I have volunteered at the animal shelter for over two years now.

Maggie Maxwell, another Dosomething.org Animal Action Grant winner, amazes me. The 10-year-old Texas native helps organize Project H.O.P.E. (Helping Our Pets through Education).

Below is my interview with Maggie. Check in later for my interview with 14-year-old fundraising dynamo Hayden Whitt, and in the meantime, check out Maggie's Project H.O.P.E. page on dosomething.org.

How did your passion for animals start?
When my family got our first dog.

How did you come up with the idea for Project H.O.P.E.?
My Socrates [gifted] class all decided this
was a good idea for a [community service] project and we are all doing the best we can.

What are some obstacles that you have with your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
Money is an issue we need money to help with our project. We could help that with fundraisers. Some of the things that we wanted to change involve our city government and that makes it harder to get things changed. Talking to everyone we can will help change that.
 

Dosomething.org helps teens who want to make an impact in their community by offering information and resources to do so.

Recently, they offered Animal Action Grants of a whopping $500 to young people working to help animals! I was lucky enough to interview three of the winners: Amanda Smith, Hayden Whitt and Maggie Maxwell. They truly are inspirational! (Meet all the winners here.)

This is my interview with Amanda Smith is a 17-year-old from Rochester, Minnesota. I'll post my interviews with Hayden and Maggie in coming weeks.

What is your project?
My project is to help promote RIDE of Rochester. RIDE stands for Rescue/Recreation Involving Deserving Equine. It promotes the rescue and rehabilitation of horses in need, safe and responsible horse ownership and the advancement of animal-assisted therapeutic programming for humans.

RIDE's hard work is entirely volunteer-driven and donor-funded. RIDE's network of foster homes, care providers, therapists and other volunteers help humans and horses in a variety of situations with many levels of need.

A problem is commonly occurring throughout the Rochester area: Neglected or abandoned horses are being left to starve and die. When this happens, RIDE steps in to save these horses on the verge of death. An example is a pony named Grandma. Grandma was left to die and was in the nastiest body condition. RIDE was there to rescue her and rehabilitate her to increase her weight and to get her health back.

A major problem for RIDE is that the public is unaware of its existence! I started an Animal Welfare Club at my high school and we will get together to do the project. 

My friend Sandi has made her dedication to pit bulls and animal rescue permanent -- check out this pic of her new tattoo.

Sandi has devoted her life to animal welfare: She works at NYC's Bideawee shelter and, like me, volunteers at Animal Care & Control of NYC (she also runs a MySpace page for AC&C pets) -- and now she's got the ink to prove it.

Seems like there's a link between caring about animals and getting inked -- maybe because one you've realized how much homeless pets need your help, you're changed for life anyway (check out the guys from NYC's Rescue Ink and Atlanta pit bull rescuer Brandon Bond for a few examples).

A rescue-themed tattoo by Dogs Deserve Better founder Tammy Grimes is after the jump.

Got a great animal tattoo? Send it to me at "blog (at) petfinder.com" and I'll post it here!

August 31, 2008--UPDATE FROM IFAW: The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has been asked by the Louisiana State Veterinarian to send a team to help the State Animal Rescue Team (SART) in setting up temporary shelters in New Orleans, pre-storm. The agreement specifies that animal rescue groups send a team (minimum 10 people) to take over a section of a 'mega-shelter' which will be set up in New Orleans, at a suitable location such as a fairground.

The storm is expected to hit the Gulf coast on Tuesday morning, and New Orleans is the forecast location--although, as of now, there is considerable uncertainty about where landfall will eventually be.The whole situation on the ground, pre-Gustav is complicated by the presence of a second tropical storm (Hannah) out to the East.

Should there be a need for animal search and rescue operations post landfall, those of our IFAW team suitably qualified will leave sheltering operations and head to the disaster scene--wherever that is--to help with animal search and rescue.

The Petfinder.com-IFAW rescue truck and trailer (above) are being readied this weekend and will probably head down to Louisiana on Tuesday. We think the storm will probably wreak its havoc on Tuesday and Wednesday, so search and rescue could start as early as Thursday (during the storm itself, it is not possible to be active within the area affected).