Cody and Marie Lucas are searching for the right rescue dog to adopt and have visited some animal shelters in Virginia. Last month, when they got to Richmond Animal Care and Control, something caught their attention.
Two colorful notes accompanied with sketches are attached to the kennel of a 5-year-old American Staffordshire terrier named Duquesa. “I am cute and short-haired. I can cuddle and bark,” one letter read in a child’s handwriting. “Please adopt me.”
The other message, written partially in Spanish, said: “Yo Necesito to be adopted. Yo necesito food and agua. Please adopt me.”
Marie peered inside after reading the letters to look at the brown dog with floppy ears. “How could I not love her?” She thought after seeing the dog.
That day, when the couple looked around the shelter, they saw other drawings and letters written by the children attached to several kennels of dogs with imperfections and health issues to find them a forever home.
The notes were from the perspective of the animals directly to their adopters. “Every dog
had a little story posted outside their door. It was really sweet,” Marie said.
The Lucases decided to bring Duquesa home to Chesterfield County, Va., on Feb. 6. They renamed her Bonnie. Bonnie had been at the shelter for about a month and had difficulty getting adopted because of her limp. Currently, there are about 170 animals in the shelter.
Most pets get adopted within an estimated three weeks. Most stay until they find their forever homes.
“Going through shelters can be a heavy experience, knowing there are so many animals that just want to be loved,” Cody said. “The pictures and stories made the process a lot brighter and full of hope.”
The couple was moved after knowing that the letters were part of a class project to help hard-to-place animals get adopted, coordinated by Kensey Jones, a second-grade teacher at St. Michael’s Episcopal School in Richmond. Jones has been a volunteer at the shelter for the past four years and has three rescue dogs of her own.
“The idea just came to me to connect persuasive writing with these adoptable pets that need a forever home,” She thought it would be “a way that I could make their writing real for [the students], and make an impact on the world and our Richmond community, specifically.”
She pitched the concept to Christie Peters, the director of the shelter, whose son is in Jones’s second-grade class.“Yes, let’s do it!” Peters remembered telling Jones, adding that she thought the idea was “so wonderful.”
Jones visited the shelter website and selected 24 animals — 23 dogs and one cat who had difficulty finding a forever home because of age, personality, health, or lack of training. Most of them had been in the shelter for several months, and Jones believed her students’ work might help them get adopted.
As a class, students read through each animal’s brief description provided by the shelter, and Jones printed photos of everyone. When the students knew about their new assignment, there were “audible cheers in the classroom,” Jones said. “As the project unfolded, they just continued to get more and more excited about it.”
“We talked about the work we do at the shelter, and how their stories would help save animals’ lives,” Peters said. The students, Jones said, reacted with “pure joy and excitement.”
They took the project very seriously and wrote carefully crafted letters that used descriptive words they learned in class to persuade potential adopters.
“We were pretty impressed by what they came up with,” Jones said. One letter that stood out, she said, was one about a dog named Sunday Special. “I would love to be adopted. If you do adopt me, I hope I will brighten up your Sundays like the sun,” the student wrote. “You’ll be my Sunday Special, and I hope I’ll be yours!”
21 of the 24 animals that were written about have been adopted since the beginning of February, including Sunday Special. Peters said she is confident the project played a significant role in the animals finding forever homes.
“It brought exposure to the pets that had the greatest need in our shelter and showcased them in a different and beautiful light,” Peters said, adding that young animals generally get adopted from the shelter quickly, while older pets with health issues are often ignored. Older dogs eventually do get adopted, she said, though the process tends to take more time.
Cody and Marie held onto their letters and now have them on their refrigerator. “You do feel connected to not just the animals and not just the shelter, but the broader idea of doing good in your community,” Cody said. “It brings about a whole purpose to the process,” Marie said she often thinks about the second-grader who wrote the letters for Bonnie.
“It gives me goosebumps thinking about the kid that wrote that, thinking they did it, they got that dog a home,” Marie said.
The students were able to see their letters hanging in the shelter in photos and videos — said they are overjoyed every time an animal is adopted. And also proud. “All dogs deserve a loving home,” said St. Michael’s second-grader, Danielle Petroski. “I am so very happy to be able to help neglected animals find great forever families.”
Jones makes a class announcement every time an adoption is finalized, and the students squeal with glee. “I think they are kind of in disbelief that they did this,” Jones said.
