Graysville Elementary students help local animal rescue
Robin Peace teaches secondgraders at Graysville Elementary School. Besides teaching children to read and add and subtract, Peace feels it’s important for them to learn things like compassion.
“Graysville is a very community-oriented school,” says Peace. “We like to reach out and help where we can.”
Another of Peace’s passions is animals. So it was natural for her to combine the school’s ethos of giving with helping a local rescue: North Georgia Animal Alliance (NGAA).
This year makes the fourth time that the school has done a donations drive for NGAA. Students and their families, as well as teachers and school personnel, contributed large bags of dog food, cat and kitten chow, canned pet food, paper towels, treats, bowls, toys, blankets and towels to assist NGAA with its work helping local animals find safety, health and permanent homes.
The first drive took place in 2018, when the school conducted a campaign titled “Be the good you want to see.” The second and third were in 2019 and early 2020. Then the pandemic hit and the year 2021 was a blur.
With school back in session for the most part, Peace says she was happy to get back to seeing students help their community again.
“The administration is very supportive,” Peace says.
NGAA president Valerie Hayes says the group deeply appreciates the supplies the school donates. “We can’t do this rescue work without the help of the public. And we love that kids are helping and learning to care about the animals in their community.”
Peace says the children get very excited about helping and love seeing the pile of donations grow as they bring in items.
North Georgia Animal Alliance is a 28- year- old animal rescue that has several areas of focus: Rescue, vetting and rehoming of animals from shelters, spay/neuter assistance to the public, care for community cats through spay/neuter, rabies vaccination and controlled feeding, and other forms of community assistance.
“In spite of the pandemic,” says NGAA secretary and rescuer Sara DeBerry, “cats and dogs did not stop having babies or finding themselves homeless, so our work went on.”
DeBerry recently compiled the numbers for the work NGAA did in 2021: 615 animals taken in and cared for, 891 cats and dogs spayed or neutered (203 fosters, 458 owned, 230 community cats), 234 animals adopted out and 341 transferred to other rescues.
DeBerry says that NGAA also provided special veterinary care ( beyond routine), including some amputations, eye removals, ear polyp removals and dental work, for 160 fosters and 61 owned pets.
“All animals we adopt out,” says DeBerry, “are spayed or
neutered, up to date on vaccinations and are microchipped.”
“I love the work NGAA does,” says Peace, who has several rescue dogs. “It breaks my heart to think about animals with no homes, hungry, sick, cold. I want to help as much as possible.”