Animals to benefit from project

Toys, treats, scratchers and more were made for animals by high school students.

On Friday morning, Expedition Academy students were busy putting donated items to good use.

Over the past few weeks, students were receiving donated items from the community, including kitten and puppy food, kitty litter, dryer sheets, pet friendly cleaners, old socks, T-shirts, jeans, tennis balls, yarn, new or old rope, jute or any other string-like material, catnip, cardboard tubes and boxes, carpet scraps, Elmer's liquid glue, and materials to make cat scratching posts such as scraps of lumber or plywood.

All of these materials were used to make useful items for animals housed at the Red Desert Humane Society in Rock Springs.

Students were divided into four groups Friday to work on the projects.

In the first room, students were busy poking holes through slips of cardboard; and then attaching the cardboard to a dowel. Next, they glued each cardboard piece together until they had enough to fit in a small box.

Student Jackii Campos said the boxes will be attached to a rope and the rope will be attached to the back of a door.

This will allow the cat to reach it and scratch on it. The whole idea came from a video the students found online.

In the toy-making room, students were busy hot gluing string and rope to balls, braiding T-shirts, or winding string around long cardboard tubes. The students were encouraged to use their creative minds to come up with toys the animals would enjoy.

"It's about getting students doing something with their hands for something bigger than themselves," Ashlee Swett, Expedition Academy media support specialist and co-coordinator, said.

She said it was great to see just how much the community supported the school with its donations.

Lee Grant, a paraprofessional at the school, said they sort of took an idea one of the students had for Make-A-Wish and did it on a much larger scale. They decided to make a big community-service project out of the idea.

"These kids are really good. They have really good imaginations," Harper said.

"I think it's teaching the kids about the community."

In the kitchen, students were baking dog and cat treats. They were using cat nip, tuna, venison, parsley and pumpkin.

The dog treats looked like bones and the cats treats were square shaped.

Outside of the school, students were busy cutting carpet, drilling holes and gluing to make cat scratching posts. By the time the students were done, the scratching posts looked like the ones one would buy at a pet store. The students were excited with how the projects turned out; and they were happy to know they were helping animals in need.