Featured Visitor: 2 Teachers + 2 Schools = Kindness "4" Our Animals
What a “simple” idea that blossomed and flourished into a beautiful act of kindness for the animals here at the Sanctuary.
Two sisters, both elementary school teachers in Missouri, decided to “share” their impending first trip to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary with all their students. How best to do that?
Robin Harbison, teaching for 11 years, discovered Best Friends while searching on the Internet. She shared her discovery with her sister, Lisa Stafford, teaching for 16 years. The sisters decided to visit and spend time volunteering with the animals while on their spring break.
Lisa used a lot of creative thinking to engage all their students and composed a letter to the parents describing the sisters' plan to visit the Sanctuary and hoping to make a donation in honor of all the students. With that in mind, the kids could bring in any monetary donation - pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollars would all be accepted and appreciated! For every $5.00 donation the children made, they would receive a set of “Paws for Pets” coupons. The coupons were redeemable for such “rewards” as no homework (use in place of one homework assignment), sitting by a friend (use to be close to a special friend - to move a desk by or sit by at lunch), or bring a game to school (use to play a favorite game with a friend in free time). Their students and the parents all loved the idea!
Lisa and Robin’s hope was that this project and Best Friends' simple philosophy that kindness to animals helps build a better world for us all would help further educate their students at Festus Elementary and Gordonville Attendance Center. Mrs. Lisa Stafford’s students raised $1,204.72 for the animals at Best Friends and Mrs. Robin Harbison’s students from a small, rural community raised $365.74 for the animals!!
We thank all the caring and generous students and their parents for their magnanimous gifts to the animals. And we once again thank Lisa and Robin for being such liberal benefactors for all the sanctuary animals!! With teachers like these on their side, how can the kids and the animals ever lose?
Story by Marcia Frankel