Are you by chance looking for an animal to adopt? Perhaps you’d also be interested in helping a charity make money to help some poor animals. Well, you’re in luck! Jenny’s Hope – the biggest animal rescue event in the tri-cities – is hosting a charity with over a dozen different shelters to invest in and adopt from, and it’s set to happen on the 26th of April. It’s at the East end of Columbia Park in Kennewick, if anyone is interested.
They do this every year, and this year, the Art Club painted some rocks for one of the booths—Tri-cities TNR(trap, neuter, return), a group that works with feral cats by taking them in and neutering them. If they can be adopted out, they’ll do what they can to find them homes. If not, they’re placed back where they were found as “it’s more stressful for them to be domesticated.”
When I asked Ms. Cruzen, one of the Art Club advisors, who came up with the idea, I was directed towards Ms. Dunn, our local cat fanatic. She was the one who brought this to Ms. Cruzen. Curious now, I asked Ms. Dunn the same question after scoring an interview with her. “It was from another board director of Tri-cities TNR,” she said. “They tried it last year and it sold really well, so they were like, ‘hey let’s do it again!’ and, uh, when they did it, it was just like them and their grandkids and stuff painted a few and I was like ‘hey! Yknow I’ve got students, we can jack up the price for student art.”
Humorous, but also a good insight into why they settled on rocks. If it sells so well, then you know it’s a good way to make money. Plus, it’s for a good cause – Those cats. I’d also asked Cruzen who came up with the idea for rocks, and while it pins the idea solely on Ms. Dunn, I thought it was worth sharing.
“Well, that was a request,” Ms. Cruzen said. “So the request was from Ms. Dunn, and she said that there was a really good outcome previously with people wanting to buy painted rocks.. to help out with causes! So, uh, we have rocks, we have markers, so we decided to help out!”
It was nice to hear not only that she had been on board, but that since she already had the materials, she was more than willing to share and have the kids go ham on creating things for this charity. As a student in Art Club, it was fun sitting around the end of a table with a few friends and painting these rocks, joking and helping each other with’s rocks.
Going back to Ms. Dunn, when asked how she was made aware of this charity, it was quite the story. Years ago, she’d found four dumped cats on her farm, with two of them pregnant. Thanks to that, they ended up with thirty-two kittens at some point, and “that was just way too many”. Since it would’ve been extremely expensive to get thirty-two cats fixed, that was when she found out about Tri Cities TNR, as they work with people who do low-cost spaying and neutering to “prevent homeless pets”.
“…When I did it, it was twenty dollars a cat,” she said. “I think they raised their price to like, fifty dollars a cat now, but still affordable.”
Sources vary, going from one hundred fifty to seven hundred dollars just to neuter one animal. While fifty might seem like a lot, nothing compares to what you could be paying. Plus, thirty-two cats are certainly way more expensive than all those dollars combined anyway, if I had to guess.
I talked to Milo, a student in Art Club, and asked about his thoughts to get his insights. To see what the students had to say.
“Oh yeah, I mean I like animals, I have dogs myself, they’re actually all from the shelter,” he started, “and I was happy to do it for the charity.”
Other students seemed to have the same thoughts when asked in passing. Near the end of each interview, they all had basically the same thing. Go to the charity! Even if you want to take home an animal, even if you can’t have pets for personal or maybe house-related reasons, go. Support the charity, play with the pets, and help the place look that much livelier. There are cats, there are rabbits, there are even turtles. You’ll find the one for you, even if it’s a temporary bond.
