Kiddies 2 Kitties provided a venue for members of the St. Francis High School Animal Welfare Club (Mountain View) to learn about the workings of their local animal shelter, Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority (SVACA) and to interact with adoptable animals. These students and their faculty advisor met with the shelter’s Outreach Coordinator Janet Alexander and PAHS’ Education Manager Leonor Delgado the morning of Saturday, November 25—their discussion was focused in part around stray cats within SVACA’s jurisdiction and the shelter’s policies for these cats. The St. Francis students had the opportunity to offer Jackson, a Lab–German Shepherd mix, an extended play session and meet and help socialize all the feline residents at the shelter.
Kiddies 2 Kitties was originally envisioned as a program for younger shy readers, or “kiddies,” to interact with cats and kittens at the shelter by reading to them—and at the same time improve their reading skills with an unbiased feline audience—and socializing these “kitties.” The program has now grown to welcome students of all ages who want to learn about the shelter and who are interested in helping cats, and interested middle school and high school students can complete community service hours through the program.
