Snoqualmie girl donates 2406 pounds of pet food to Seattle Humane
Published 8:30 am Thursday, June 2, 2016
After a month of raising money and gaining support, 13-year-old Caroline McCall donated more than 2,400 pounds of pet food to the Seattle Humane Society.
Caroline McCall, Snoqualmie resident and eighth grade student at Eastside Catholic Middle School, started her pet food drive as part of a project from the Seattle Humane Society Teen Club. The Humane Society allows volunteers only age 18 or older, but the teen club lets younger people learn about the organization and volunteer before they turn 18.
“I joined the humane teen club because I couldn’t volunteer until I was 18,” McCall said. “I wanted to join because animals have always been one of my passions.”
As part of the program, McCall and the rest of the club members were given a project to raise 500 pounds of pet food for the Humane Society’s food bank. McCall knew it was important to start quickly, and came up with multiple plans, but she was not able to find success with them.
“I had a rough start, the three original plans ended up not working out,” she said. “But my fourth plan, the gofundme and QFC, was very successful.”
McCall explained that the teen club gave suggestions about how to collect pet food. A participant from a previous year came in to talk about how she succeeded and mentioned crowdfunding through gofundme.com. Inspired by that advice, McCall decided to try crowdfunding as well as collecting donations outside of a QFC.
Over approximately 20 days, McCall raised exactly $1,000 and with that money, bought 2,406.2 pounds of pet food. McCall said she was disappointed at first because she wasn’t able to reach her goal of $2,000, but underestimated how much pet food $1,000 can buy.
“Over a couple of weeks we had to go to Costco to collect food because we couldn’t fit it all in our car,” she said. “We collected 500 pounds with just $300… I didn’t realize how much food $1,000 can buy.”
In addition to the food bought with crowdfunding money, she was able to collect 470 pounds just from donations made outside of QFC in North Bend. Once all the food was collected, McCall and her parents rented a moving truck to carry all of the food.
“We rented a U-Haul to take it all and we couldn’t fit it in our car, I had to take out some of the money to pay for the U-Haul,” she said. “We piled it all in the truck and took it over to the Issaquah pet food bank where they sort it all and when the humane society needs more food they take it from the bank to the campus.”
McCall said the project helped her learn not to give up, even when a problem can feel impossible to overcome. This experience was so rewarding to her that she wants to make it a regular event.
“I learned it’s OK to keep trying even if you have a rough start, as long as you keep trying you can still be successful,” she said. “Also I’m hoping to do it again next year and I want to make it an annual thing.”
McCall has now graduated from the club, allowing her to volunteer while under the age of 18. She is currently preparing to start training for her summer volunteer position as a pet publicist.
“I will take pictures of animals, specifically dogs, to portray their true personality when they are not locked up in a cage and write a biography about them to help them get adopted sooner,” she said. “And I will be posting it on the Seattle Humane website.”
