Congratulations to St Peter’s student, Jenna S, who was recently nominated as a finalist in the Social Impact category of the Edstart Achievement Awards!
This is such a significant achievement, and a true reflection of Jenna’s compassion with her selfless volunteer work in Central Coast animal shelters, and her positive impact within our community.
A little bit about Jenna’s volunteer work:
Since 2019, Jenna has been involved in helping Central Coast animal shelters with walking dogs and donation of pet goods. However, when COVID prevented visiting the shelters, Jenna decided she still wanted to help. Jenna rallied neighbours and friends to help with gathering larger amounts of pet food and other pet supplies. At the end of 2022, Jenna opened Jenna’s page on Facebook to not only collect and deliver pet goods but to also raise money. In just over five months, Jenna’s Page has successfully donated over $2,000, delivered over 700 tins/sachets of cat food, more than 600 bags of dry dog food, handmade 130 pet beds, donated over 100 pet toys and the list goes on. Raising funds has been completed by holding market stalls selling homemade pet bows, bandanas and beds along with running photo comps and raffles. In addition, Jenna’s Page has also contributed to raise awareness in our local area about the current crisis homeless and abandoned pets are currently facing.
Jenna’s goal, and reason for entering the Awards:
During her volunteer work at the shelters, Jenna identified a major problem of overcrowding of abandoned, surrendered and homeless cats and dogs, because they are not being de-sexed. Jenna’s goal is to work with a local shelter and have open days where animals could be desexed at a subsidised cost to encourage more people to desex their pets and reduce unplanned pregnancies, relieving the pressure on animal shelters.
As part of the awards, Jenna courageously pitched this issue as project close to her heart, to try and receive a grant to fund her goal. Unfortunately, the winning grant went to another finalist, but we are SO PROUD of Jenna coming so close!
With your compassion and commitment Jenna, we have no doubts you will achieve your goal one day soon. To continue to follow Jenna’s incredible work, please head to her Facebook page Jenna’s page
