Allison Hunter
Five of us from U12 Premier worked together to complete our community service project for the RAGE Leadership Program. The five girls are: Allison Hunter, Allison Jenezon, Ashley Cole, Kate Hottinger and Kylie Racer. We decided to do a project to help the local Valley Humane Animal Shelter. As a group we decided to make blankets for the dogs and cats that are waiting to be adopted. We also decided to collect donations for the shelter. 
On a Saturday after one of our games we went to Valley Humane and talked to them about our project. They had just received 8 rolls of fleece and were very excited that we had 5 girls that could help cut and tie the fleece and make blankets. Additionally we had already purchased fleece for blankets. In all we made 49 blankets! Now every cat will have a blanket to keep even when they get adopted. To help pay for the fleece we bought we sold mistletoe to friends and family and raised enough money to cover the cost.
Trader Joe’s donated 50 brown bags and we printed a wish list from Valley Humane to attach to each bag. We delivered bags to friends and family and asked for donations. In all we collected 28 bags of pet supplies, 4 large bags of cat food, a scratching post, 7 bags of cat litter. $125 cash donations and gift cards to PetFood Express. From now on, Valley Humane Society will have plenty of blankets and supplies!
Allison Jenezon
Hi my name is Allie Jenezon. I am from the U-12 Premier team and I took part in the Rage Leadership Program with Kylie, Ashley, Kate, and Allie H. For our community service project, we decided to focus on the Valley Humane Society. We all got together and made blankets for the animals. In order to pay for the blanket material, we sold mistletoe door to door. We also asked family, friends, and neighbors for donations for the Valley Humane Society. We collected many bags filled with cat toys, dog toys, food, kitty litter, and cleaning supplies. We also collected cash donations. The last thing we did was to deliver the blankets and donated items. We even got to play with the animals in the shelter. The people at the Valley Humane Society were very grateful for all of the hard work we did. We were proud of our accomplishment and glad we could help a worthy organization.
Ashley Cole
During the holiday season many animals that do not have a home are forgotten. My leadership team chose to help the Valley Humane Society to make the holidays better for animals that do not have a home. We worked as a team to figure out what we were going to do to help and then how to do it. We used different ways of communicating to work on the project. In addition to helping the animals, I learned many lessons.
My leadership team had a meeting to decide what we were going to do for a project. Everybody had a chance to give ideas for the project and we made the decision as a group. Once we decided on what to do, we talked about it via email, text messages and meetings.
During one of the meetings we decided we would make blankets and get donations of things that the Valley Humane Society needed. The Valley Humane Society gave us a list of things they needed. We put this list on paper bags and gave them to our family and friends. We also sold mistletoe to raise money to pay for the cloth to make blankets for the animals. We had another meeting after a game and made the blankets.
When the project was done we had gotten a lot of donations for the Valley Humane Society and made a lot of blankets. I learned many lessons doing this project. I learned how to work as part of a group and listen to ideas that other people have. I also learned how to share my ideas with other people. Finally, I learned how to get a project and idea done on time while still doing other things I had to do.
Kate Hottinger
Completing our community service project for the RAGE leadership program was a unique experience. Our group had five people. During the leadership classes we decided together to do our community project to benefit animals in need. There were several different places to donate and we decided to select the Valley Humane Animal Shelter because it was a smaller facility and one of the parents knew the director of the center. During the last two sessions of the leadership program, we started to work on what we could do for the project. We started the planning for our project during these sessions. We all had good ideas and we worked well in class. It was nice to know what we were working on before we left the leadership classes because part of our planning was already done.
As a group, we decided to make fleece blankets for the animals, we weren’t sure how many or what size. We also knew that we wanted to collec
t pet supplies and donations for the animals. We all met after one of our soccer games and cut and tied pet blankets. We were able to get more fleece donated from the shelter so we made more blankets on our own time. In total, we made 49 blankets. They were different sizes and prints. Some were very little for baby kittens and a few were larger for medium sized dogs. To cover the cost, we sold mistletoe door to door. One of the parents had a friend who donated bushes/branches of mistletoe to our group. We pulled them out, cut them into little bundles and tied red ribbons on the tops of each small branch. We raised almost $70 to pay for the fleece and other supplies.
We also went to Trader Joe’s and asked to have them donate brown paper bags. We attached a flyer of the shelter’s wish list on each bag and we passed them out to family and friends to fill. We also asked for cash donations. I collected a $100 from cash donations and several bags of supplies. We all met at the shelter to drop off our donations, they were very grateful. It was amazing to see how generous people were when it came to donating and helping out the animals and our project. The shelter allowed us to visit all the animals and we spent a lot of time with the dogs and cats in need.
Community project work is hard because it takes time and planning. Not all of the work is fun even though you are with your friends. At times making the blankets was tiring because of the time it took to make the blankets. It was also hard to schedule a meeting time that worked with all of our schedules. In the end, when I saw the actual animals in the shelter, it made me realize that all the hard work and time was worth the effort. I think the project helped me become a better leader because at times it can be challenging to have the same goal and to stay on task just like on the soccer field. You also have to stand up when someone isn’t doing the right thing and leading the team in the wrong direction, just like when we don’t listen to how our coach wants us to approach a game situation. I also learned how there are different ways to be a leader from the class, a leader isn’t someone that speaks the loudest but it can be someone who leads by doing the right thing quietly. I also liked the feeling I had when I left the shelter, I felt that we made a difference.
Kylie Racer
I had a lot of fun doing this leadership project and it taught me a lot. We chose this project because we all love animals and we don’t like to see them homeless and not getting a lot of attention. We continued planning our project after the classes by getting together and talking and meeting. We planned that we were going to make kitty and puppy blankets, and donate food, toys, medicine, litter and much more.
Yes, we were successful! We collected over 40 big bags of stuff for cats and dogs. Also, we made more than 40 blankets.
I learned that not everything revolves around me, and to help others. I am healthy and I have a home; not all animals and people are healthy and have homes so I’m very happy I had the experience to help. My favorite part of this project was to see all the animals and giving them attention. Also my favorite part was basically the whole project! The hardest part was probably collecting everything and telling everyone what this was for and what we were doing. I’m so happy to have gotten this opportunity to do what I did and I hope I will do it again some day and maybe next I will adopt a little homeless animal. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to help and to get closer to my 2nd sisters (my soccer team!) I LOVE LEADERSHIP.
Posted: 1/7/13
