The Animal Welfare Club provides opportunities for students to get involved in animal advocacy by hosting meetings in room 251 every other Wednesday. Many people are interested in helping animals, and they may have the opportunity to do so by joining this club. “We love animals, and we want to spread the information and love we share to as much people as we can,” Malina Patel, Animal Welfare board member, said.
According to the club leaders, in order to help support animals, this group holds all sorts of events that help bring awareness and support to different animals, domesticated or not. Through fundraisers, creating endangered species projects, handmaking toys for animal shelters, and all other activities, the organization supports their cause of welfare.
Fundraisers, one of the more crucial events for the club, directly helps shelters that support the club’s cause, financially or physically. Through fundraisers and get together events where students handmake toys for animals, the club is able to help support many different shelters in New Jersey. “SAVE in Montgomery is the main one. Anything extra the club raises goes to other nearby shelters,” math teacher and adviser Elizabeth Watts said.
This year, the club also has new objectives to help bring more awareness and support to animals. The Animal Welfare board members seek to collaborate with other organizations. “They also hope to get guest speakers and make the club more interactive this year,” Watts said. Last year, the organization collaborated through a joining meeting with Project Green, and they plan to do it again this year.
The club has been mainly ran by the student board members throughout their entire high school experience. This year is many of the student board member’s final years running the Animal Welfare Club. “Four of the members are seniors so they’re leaving soon, so they’re interviewing other students for leadership roles,” Watts said. The Animal Welfare club wants to make sure they find the right people to run the club in the future, so they take their time and offer interviews to members who qualify for the roles they’re looking for, according to Watts.
Many of the students who joined Animal Welfare have had their fair share of experience with animals throughout their life, whether they grew up with them, worked alongside them, or just share the same amount of love for animals as the other members. “I joined because I worked at a cat sanctuary. I ended up working with lots of disabled cats alongside professional workers,” junior Grace Carver said.
The Animal Welfare club will meet next Wednesday, on Nov. 12. Interested students are invited to stop by the next meeting and talk to one of the board members about joining.
