Meadows Valley Students: For The Love of Pets
Meadows Valley School students are no strangers to community service. A school wide initiative has students participate in various activities each year to benefit the local community. These may be individual, small group, or classroom projects. Students work to plan, organize, and execute their service ideas with support from teachers, staff, and mentors. Projects are presented each school year at two Celebration of Learning events.
Students in grades 1, 9, and 10 recently completed their project, “For the Love of Pets”, in which they raised supplies to support the work of McPaws Animal Shelter in McCall. Students hosted a supply drive throughout the month of February gathering much needed items from a wish list provided by McPaws. Items were delivered to McPaws by the group in early March.
Requested items included comfort and enrichment items like Nyla bones, puzzle feeders, throw blankets, and cat hammocks as well as basic items like food and cleaning supplies.
Meadows Valley FFA Chapter members added a helping hand by making dog toys as a service project for National FFA Week, which took place the first week of March. Students used rope and tennis balls to create the toys for donation to the Pet Project.
First grader Patrick described their experience delivering the supplies on March 4 saying, “We rode a big ‘ol bus to McPaws. We helped them and went up to see the cats.” Classmate Oaklee said she learned that McPaws “feeds and takes care of animals” and said she “liked that there was a cat getting adopted”. Many students told me animals help us by protecting us and keeping us safe. Another first grader, Kashlynn, said “cats help us by cleaning up stuff by eating rats and voles.” Everyone understood that they could help animals by feeding them. Zephyr added that “we help animals by keeping them healthy and taking them to a vet, giving them water, and letting them go outside so they can get some sunlight, and you can play with them.”
The supply raising students were able to experience a tour of the shelter led by staff who explained the inner workings of McPaws and showed off the animals. Everyone seemed to enjoy helping the shelter in their community work and many expressed strong interest in adopting an animal in the future.
