On July 21, 2021, Greater Temecula Valley AYLUS (GTVA) Members Ally Negulescu(2.5 hrs), Adora Xiao(2 hrs), Zaiba Choudhury(1.5 hrs), and Shania Jin(1.5 hrs) took a trip to a local animal shelter to visit and to donate their earnings from the Recycling Project held on 6/16/2021.
In June, GTVA members gathered and donated bottles and soda cans, recycling them for cash. Today the cash proceeds from the event were been donated to Animal Friends of the Valleys.
Animal Friends of the Valleys is based in Wildomar and has an influence across Temecula and surrounding counties. They were founded in 2010, based in a state of the art building. In one year, they receive 8600 animals, consisting of all sorts of animals—like guinea pigs, bunnies, cats, and dogs. Not only will they receive lost or stray animals, but they also take care of wild animals too.
In a tour of the facility, members were shown the rooms that the animals were kept in. Strays were often kept in holding for 5-10 days depending on their circumstance before adoption was an option. These contained blankets, which members had been interested in donating to shelters for a few weeks. They had the idea of knitting or crocheting squares and then sewing them together into a blanket. Our tour guide, Ms. Beth, said that blankets were great as long as they didn’t have stuffing. With the good news, GTVA members were in high spirits, which only soared higher when members were allowed into the kitten room, where many tried (unsuccessfully) to convince their parents to take one home.
After today’s visit, GTVA created a relation with Animal Friends of the Valleys and is planning in the near future to volunteer at their facility on a regular basis. We had so much fun with the animals at the shelter that we will be happy to be back for more.
