Blog #3: Making a Difference!

Posted by Kara Heenan in English 1 - Dunn - X on Friday, May 30, 2014 at 7:21 pm

Hello, my name is Kara Heenan and I attend Science Leadership Academy. In English class, we are doing a project to take part in changing the world, called You and the World. If you don’t remember from my previous blogs, I am extremely against animal cruelty. In my first blog, I gave facts and statistics on the different types of abuse and voiced my opinion. In my second blog, I provided some recent news on stories and laws on animal abuse and also shared what I did for my original research, which was examining stray animals in my neighborhood. This time around, I will be sharing my last blog with you on what I’ve done for my agent of change, and giving suggestions on how you could help.

In recent news of the world, animal cruelty cases are still popping up each and every day. In research I’ve done, I found that more cases of people abusing animals are showing up is because of law enforcement becoming stronger. In New York, they are training law enforcement to always gather important evidence of abuse or neglect for prosecuting the abuser. Costa Rica finally banned dog fighting. In Tennessee, law enforcement agencies are working hard together to make a change in the neighborhoods, they mostly see cases of neglect and hoarding. "I think that we're getting more complaints about those not because it's happening more often, but i think people are becoming more aware that it is a problem," said Frankie Bryne, animal cruelty investigator. Overall, I’m happy to see people coming together and giving these animals the justice they deserve, and I think training law enforcement is a major step forward in ending animal cruelty.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. If you want to change an issue, you have to take part. I wanted to take part, so I heard about a shelter called PAWs. I heard that it was a great shelter, and that they were in need of money and supplies in order to stay open. After hearing this, I was concerned, and teamed up with my friend Jaiye. We wanted to help out, so we decided to have a bake sale for money to donate. Jaiye and I had obstacles on the way, we started too late, we kept trying to schedule days to sell, trying to get people to buy things, but it still made me feel good about myself to finally be able to help people and animals in need, and those obstacles don’t matter in the end.

Jaiye selling donuts.

At the end, we raised $38. I wanted to make more than that in the beginning, but it was okay, I was still proud. Going to the shelter, I was excited, I love making people happy. When I got there, there were many, many cats. I felt bad that they couldn't have a home. I gave the very nice ladies the money, and they were ecstatic. They wouldn't stop thanking us. I felt really proud of myself. This whole project was great. It can really make a person feel good about themselves, to make a difference in the world. I know that there are many things left to do to end animal cruelty. But I'm glad I made an effort to stop an amazing shelter from closing and leaving animals without homes. Anyone can help, do the same thing I did, donate to any organization, adopt an animal from a shelter instead of buying them from breeders, help a stray animal. Small actions count too. It's not hard to change how we treat our fellow animals, if we all pitch in together.

Sweet PAWs staff member accepting the money. Cute cats, that sadly have no home.

I would like to thank Jaiye for helping me, everyone who bought from our bake sales, the staff at PAWs, and last but not least Ms. Dunn for giving us time and encouragement and coming up with this amazing project.

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