For my leadership project, through my soccer club, Rage, my four teammates and I decided to do the giving tree. This project was a program that the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) did every year around the holidays. Our job was to set up a fake Christmas tree, and decorate it with tons of paper ornaments saying what they needed for the animals.
At first, I was thinking that the project would be a lot of work, but then I realized that if I tried my best, the animals living there would get a benefit from it. After spending hours making over 60 ornaments, I was extremely tired. With all of the help from my mom and my younger sister, things were much easier. Once this task was finished, my group and I could go to the SPCA and put up the tree, decorate it and put baskets under it. On a hot Wednesday after practice, we all arrived at the SPCA. An employee there, Ellen, told us to get the tree, decorate it and then she would lead us to a closet full of baskets. It was so cool! When we finished all of our tasks, we could go see the homeless dogs and cats. It made me really depressed seeing all of them sitting there with nothing to play with. A second after seeing the cute pets I remembered that one of the items on the wish list was toys. Knowing that the animals would receive a toy for the holidays really cheered me up! With our parents emailing nonstop everything was up to date. They coordinated this process, which was, each girl would go one week and take all of the items to the donation room. When I went, I almost fainted! There were tons of donations under the tree. Wow, this project was awesome!
I feel that this project changed my life because it was very educational and because I can carry the fact with me everywhere that I changed some animal’s lives! Now in the future I know about all of the programs the SPCA has to help the animals. I learned, on top of all of the interesting facts about the SPCA, that helping is so fun. Even though you have to put a lot of time and work into the activity you are doing, you can change someone’s life in a very special way.
Posted: 1/5/12
