During the pandemic, shelters emptied out in record time as everyone staying at home wanted to add a fur baby to their family. Now that things are slightly returning to normal, cats and dogs are once again looking for their forever families from the cages of animal shelters.
So a second grade teacher at St. Michael’s Episcopal School in Richmond, Virginia decided to do something about it. Kensey Jones decided to reach out to Director Christie Peters at Richmond Animal Care and Control with a special idea: “How do you feel about the second graders writing persuasive paragraphs through the eyes of one of the shelter animals?” she tells TODAY. Peters was definitely on board.
To help the kids get inspired, she brought a puppy to the classroom. “I then sat down with the class and told them about each of the dogs and a little bit about their personality and then assigned each student an animal.”
Focusing on harder-to-adopt animals that were older or had health concerns made the project even more special. In addition to sharing about the 24 pets the class would write about, Peters also shared about how the shelter worked to give each student a little more background. And spoiler alert: the project was a huge success.
Peters reports that “The speed in which they were adopted after we did this promotion really gives merit to it. These were dogs that were overlooked for some time and the (essays) really did bring people into the shelter and maybe make them think about those dogs and the one cat in a different light.”
For the students, it was more than just a chance to write about shelter animals looking for adoption. In addition to honing their persuasive writing skills, it was also an opportunity for them to put themselves in someone else’s shoes.
Jill Witthoefft, mom to one of the students at St. Michael’s shares, “It might not have been a human shoe, but it was paws, and they had to put themselves in that dog’s place or that cat’s place and think about what you want to persuade someone based on the personality and needs of that animal.”
Peters reports that almost all of the 24 animals have been adopted. Not only that, all adoptive parents got to take home the sweet essay and portrait created by the students at St. Michael’s.
All photos: Courtesy of Richmond Animal Care and Control
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