Ryan Carter
Girl Scout Troop No. 1535 is coming to an end this year, but the
legacy of its members will go far beyond cookie sales.
For three Burbank 18-year-olds who spent many days since
kindergarten raising money and serving their community, departing for
college and careers does not come without another act of service on
behalf of something they love: animals.
Jocelyn Diel, Erika Ostrander and Crystal Welliver decided money
recently raised through selling Girl Scout cookies, calendars and
peanuts will go toward the creation of a "Kitty Corner" in the cat
room at the Burbank Animal Shelter.
They spent Sunday afternoon creating the corner with the hope of
encouraging more people to adopt lonely, caged felines. For shelter
staff and volunteers, the gift was a blessing.
"I thought 'How wonderful!' " shelter volunteer Eva Sippel said,
adding that volunteers and staffers had been hoping to make the
shelter's cat room more inviting.
Instead of a sterile room with only cages, a corner was set up for
visitors to sit down on new chairs near a new multi-colored rug and
walls adorned with pictures of cats. The arrangement was an interior
design that former Girl Scout Sandra Ray, a home furnishings
consultant at IKEA, helped design. The idea for a room was brought to
volunteers by shelter kennel attendant Stacey Levin.
Out of the $500 the girls donated, $300 will be used for buying
special platforms for dog cages at the shelter.
"Too many animals end up having to be put down, and many feel
caged up. This makes the room a little more open," said Diel, who
recently started studies in animal science at UC Davis.
"If [people] can sit down like they would at home and spend some
time with a cat, it might encourage them to adopt that animal."
Each girl owns an animal adopted from the shelter.
"If you have something to give to others, you do," Diel said.
