Kids love animals and many want to volunteer at pet shelters but are often told they are too young. However, Mimi Ausland has found a way for kids to help shelter animals and have fun at the same time. The teen from Bend, Oregon created Freekibblekids.com just for kids who want to know how they can make a difference in the lives of shelter pets.
Freekibblekids Helps Shelter Pets
Recognizing how much kids want to help animals, Mimi recently created Freekibblekids.com. She blogs for the site about all kinds of pet subjects including animal rescue stories, animal videos, recipes for dog and cat treats, and especially lots of tips on how kids can help shelter pets. There’s also a monthly contest in which kids submit stories, drawings, photos, or videos showing creative ways they’ve helped animals in their communities. The winning entry gets $250, funded by a donation from author Gotham Chopra, sent to a favorite shelter.
Kids Have Fun Helping Shelter Pets
When Mimi is not at school or doing homework, she spends most of her free time maintaining several Freekibble sites, keeping records, creating pet trivia questions and answering emails from other kids. When kids ask her how they can help, she tells them to just do whatever they can and sometimes suggests raising money with a lemonade stand or car wash.
The success of Freekibble can perhaps be chalked up to the fact that it’s fun. From reading a blog written by a peer and seeing kids’ winning entries posted, to the challenge of answering pet trivia questions, kids learn how they can get involved. Add to that the fact that it helps shelter pets and you have a win-win situation.
How Freekibble Began
Mimi first started volunteering at the Humane Society of Central Oregon at the age of 9. Two years later, she decided she wanted to do more to help the animals there. Inspired by the Freerice.com site which donates ten grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program for each viewer’s correct answer to a trivia question, she took that same idea and made it work to provide quality kibble for hungry shelter pets.
Mimi created Freekibble.com and Freekibblekat.com where pet food sponsors, supported by pet-related businesses, donate ten pieces of kibble to shelter animals for each daily Bow Wow trivia and Meow trivia question that is answered. The questions are fun and it doesn’t matter if your answer is correct or not; the pet food is still donated. Email reminders help supporters not to forget a single day.
For a child, Mimi sure knew how to make things happen. Six weeks after the sites were launched, she delivered 240 pounds of pet food to the Humane Society of Central Oregon. Since that first local delivery on April 1, 2008, Freekibble.com has donated more than 326 tons of pet food to 49 shelters across the nation.
Age restrictions do not have to mean that young children must give up on helping animals. Have a look at Freekibblekids.com. Enter the monthly contest, answer fun pet trivia questions on Freekibble.com, and, for more ideas, read Kids Volunteering Help at Animal Shelters.
Joy Butler - Writer, retired lab tech, mom, and animal lover with over 20 years' experience rescuing, kenneling, training and showing dogs.
Join the Conversation