When schools partner with local nonprofits like this Albuquerque animal shelter, good news will not be far away.
Teachers at Polk Middle School in the Albuquerque’s South Valley reached out to the Bernalillo County Animal Care Center with an idea for how to bring attention to long-term dogs at the shelter so they can get adopted into loving families.
The wonderful collaboration began in the Fall semester when the shelter sent photographs and notes about each of the hard-to-place pets to art students in Ms. McCrady’s class and to writing students in Ms. Arriaga’s class.
The language students wrote first-person appeals in the voice of dogs, while the art classes created pictures of pooches.
All visitors were able to see the artistic and literary pieces displayed in each dog’s kennel.
This Spring, Mr. Beverly’s 7th grade gifted class went a step further, after shelter staff provided folders of notes about the dogs and students crafted their “resumes.”
The mission was to list all the skills and tricks that would make each dog a suitable family member: Uses doggie door, stays when commanded, comes when called.
Thanks to the students, by May 17 six of the dogs had been adopted!
According to Animal Protection New Mexico Education Director Sherry Mangold, it was the Polk students’ empathy and concern for shelter dogs that delivered so many of them into new ‘fur-ever’ homes.
WATCH the local news coverage from KOB-TV 4…
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