Another volunteer has helped the Blooming Grove animal shelter, as Kayla Meade (a Cornwall freshman) completed her Girl Scout Silver Award project this past weekend.
Fellow Scout Melody Smith had finished her project at the shelter last month and informed Meade of the shelter’s additional needs.
“I know many animals are abused, hurt, or don’t have a place to go, so I thought I should help them out,” said Meade.
Meade first wanted to build some fencing, but after visiting the shelter she realized it had another need.
“I saw near the cat area there was nowhere for anyone to sit and the cats didn’t have any catnip,” Meade said. “I decided I would build two benches, one outside, for people to pet the cats, and one on the inside.”
Meade also purchased potted catnip plants to place inside the cats’ play area.
Once Meade received approval for the project, in July, she bought the wood to build the benches. Meade wanted to paint the wood, but discovered she would have to wait a year in order for the fresh wood to dry. Instead, the lumber experts at Lowe’s suggested she use a burning technique to create a design on the benches.
She bought a wood burning pen at Michaels, but soon found it difficult working against the grain of the wood. On the second bench she used her father’s blowtorch to burn “Cats,” two paw prints, and the name of the shelter on the bench.
The construction of the benches and the burn design only took a couple of weeks. They were installed on Saturday.
The final step of her assignment will be to publicly announce her project through the creation of a website or video.
It wasn’t part of her project, but when Meade learned the shelter would be remodeling the cat room, she offered to put her joy of art and painting to use by creating a mural on the wall.
