Seattle Humane: The Humane Society for Seattle/King County: Build-A-Bear Youth Humane Education Grant Report

How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?

This generous grant was used to support our existing Humane Education programs for kids ages 6-14. Thanks to you we were able to serve hundreds of children in elementary and middle schools across King County employing our Humane Education curriculum, which includes topics such as pet overpopulation, pet health, volunteerism and animal behavior. School visits also included a visit from our "MaxMobile" mobile adoption bus so students could benefit from hands-on interaction with shelter animals.

Humane Education is very important to our organization. We view educating the next generation of animal-lovers as a protective measure which prevents animals from the scary type of situations that may cause them to enter the shelter in the first place. With a future generation that values animal life and is inspired to pursue careers in animal welfare, we can effectively end pet homelessness.

How many pets did this grant help?

It is difficult to calculate a number for how many pets have been served by this grant because it may take some time to see the results, but we estimate that Humane Education programs can save thousands of animals in our region from uncertain futures in shelters.

Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.

This grant helped people as well as pets and we would like to share some specific quotes from students regarding the Humane Education classes you provided. When asked what lessons they’d learned, they replied: “Taking care of animals is more complicated than you think,” “how to save animals,” and “what to do when an animal is in need.” When asked what they liked best about Humane Education: “I liked everything!” “everything was purrrrfect!” and “bring more animals!”