“It’s a great example of showing the community that kids are informed, they do want to learn, and the kids do have the passion to put others in front of them,” said Ericka Haines, director of the Burlington County Animal Shelter, who welcomed township students from Hartford School to read to animals and learn about its operations.
The Hartford Hounds 4 Hounds – a group of fifth graders from Mount Laurel’s Hartford School – visited the Burlington County Animal Shelter last month to read to animals and learn about the shelter’s operations and how residents can help.
“It’s a great example of showing the community that kids are informed, they do want to learn, and the kids do have the passion to put others in front of them,” said Ericka Haines, the shelter’s director. “It’s not just all video games and what’s the newest thing on TikTok …
“It was really great just to get back to the basics and see the kids take the time to connect with the animals themselves.”
The students’ parents also attended the event, which produced a good dynamic for others to see, Haines described.
“When the kids got to sit down and read, we had the parents with them, so you could actually see the parents really interact,” she recounted. “The kids may have started off with learning about the animals, but it was actually a great opportunity for their parents to learn so much more about Burlington County and how the shelter works.”
Hartford teacher Christy Vincent is overseeing the student-led service project. Part of the school’s social studies curriculum involves creating an activism project, so a group of her students wanted to do something along the lines of working with animals. The Hartford Hounds 4 Hounds are taking direct action to influence change and make a change in their community.
The Hartford Hounds 4 Hounds students also collected pet toys, food, blankets and monetary donations for the shelter.
“(They’re) just trying to make a change, to make sure that animals are being helped, and they just want to take the issue at hand of making sure that all of the animals (at the county animal shelter) are taken care of, can get adopted and those kinds of things,” Vincent explained.
The Hartford Hounds 4 Hounds also collected pet toys, food, blankets and monetary donations for the shelter; as of Dec. 20, they have raised more than $600. The group will visit the shelter every other month to continue their efforts.
“Just their passion alone to want to be the direct change in continuing this … I know that they (people) are going to read this story, that they’re going to feel how everything is feeling, and just really that heartfelt story of, ‘Look at these kids who are trying to make a change,'” Vincent observed of her students. “But at the same time, they know that policy change takes a while, so in the meantime, they still don’t want to sit back and wait.
“They’re hoping that the community and everyone in Burlington County will want to step up and help with either donations or going in and registering as a volunteer at the shelter or dropping off blankets.”
For more information on the county animal shelter, visit www.co.burlington.nj.us/168/Animal-Shelter.
“I think it’s a great opportunity just to show the community that, don’t count kids out,” Haines noted of the Hartford Hounds 4 Hounds. “They’re our future, and they’re really starting off with a good program.”
