Hearty donation for four-legged friends

IT was a tail-wagging affair as the pupils of Umhlanga College rounded up their Project Dog Food Mile initiative recently.

As part of the school’s ‘From The Heart’ social responsibility programme, the Grade 7 leadership team – Julia Burnett, Kendall Buck and Kylie Misdorp – encouraged their peers to donate food, money and other doggy accessories to the non-profit animal organisation, Project Dog.

“We placed notices up in the classrooms and spoke in assembly, explaining the importance of the work of Project Dog and reminding pupils to make their donation,” said Buck. We are all animal lovers and we feel proud of the effort we and our peers have made,” added Burnett.

Through the initiative, the pupils managed to collected 201 tins of dog food, 22 large and 114 small food bags and over 80 sachets, as well as 12 food bowls, four beds and 11 blankets. Dozens of chew toys and bones as well as R905 were also collected during the drive.

The collected food will feed the dogs under Project Dog’s care for up to six months, said Kim Coull, a member of the school’s parent association, who headed the project.
Coull and nine other parents from the association oversee the ‘From the Heart’ charity drives.

“We recently adopted a dog from Project Dog, as did a few other parents. The organisation therefore seemed a natural choice for us to support,” added Coull.

For the school’s latest social responsibility initiative, the Hippity Hoppity Easter Egg collection, pupils were urged to donate boxes of marshmallow Easter eggs. The boxes will be donated to Vulingqondo Primary School in Eshowe and Sizokhula Care Centre. Last year the pupils successfully collected and donated 12 000 boxes of Easter eggs.