Our wish is to create a welcoming and functional area for our local animal shelter to create strong relationships with the public. We hope that this project will increase owner responsibility awareness, the importance of spaying and neutering pets and how important it is to adopt.
As a 4H group located in New York we strive to constantly look at ways we can assist our community. We have chosen to assist our local animal shelter in making improvements to their facility so that it is more efficient, adopter friendly and pet friendly. The facility is in dire need of turn out areas for the dogs and after meeting with the facility director we have decided that a great project for our 4H would be to build a new Puppy Corral for the shelter. The shelter facility has fallen on hard times and is in need of some improvements. As a 501C3 Non Profit group, they rely strictly on the graciousness of the community to donate time and money in order to improve the facilities. As a 4H program that has strong roots in animal science and a very strong dog focus we feel that it is a great opportunity for us to give back to our community as well as to the many animals that through no fault of their own have become shelter residents. We are proposing to build a Puppy Corral where the puppies taken in by the shelter would have room to exercise and socialize. The Corral also gives adopters the opportunity to view how the puppies interact with other dogs and is also a much more pleasant way for the public to view possible dogs they are interested in adopting, as opposed to kennels. Currently, the Corral is old and not secure. The wood is rotted and the shelter is constantly fixing the fencing when it really should be completely replaced. The basic plan for this proposal is to spend 1-2 days at the shelter with a group of 4H youth. We will volunteer our time to pound fence posts, string wire mesh, paint boards and also create a new sign for the structure. Youth will learn the benefits of hard work, compassion, ethical values and principles of responsibility. For this campaign, the Oneida County 4H program will match and/or exceed the $200 that the Roots and Shoots mini grant will provide in order to complete the campaign. In order to gauge the success of this campaign before and after photo's will be taken,4H will conduct follow ups on the number of adoptions that the shelter sees as well as gather testimonials from the public and staff of the shelter to showcase the project's success.
