Olmsted Academy South students organize Puppy Room fundraiser

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - A creative class project is cultivating a lot of buzz at one local middle school.

Students at Olmsted Academy South organized a Puppy Room for their classmates Wednesday.

Sixth graders Shayna Hodge, Sophia Reichardt, and Brianna Heiser organized a visit from 6-week-old puppies May and Jonathan.

The fundraiser was part of a class project where students were tasked with picking a problem in the community and finding a way to solve it.

“I found a fact that 7.6 million animals are in shelters because they don’t have a family and this made me really upset,” Heiser said.

For a small donation, students got a ten-minute break from the classroom to visit with the shelter dogs.

“I love for the people to pet them and play with them,” Hodge said. “I just love seeing people be so happy.”

The trio started planning the event in early November.

“The girls drafted the emails, the girls wrote the proposals, they’re the people who made it happen,” their teacher Jennifer Wade Hesse said. “They’ve come in early. They’ve pushed themselves to do things they’re not comfortable with.”

The girls were able to raise $300 for the Kentucky Humane Society. They hope the success of their event will encourage other young people to take action, too.

“It’s kind of easy, it’s just you have to get involved,” Reichardt said. “You can’t just be standing on the sidelines. You have to get involved with the world.”

The puppies will be up for adoption in a couple weeks through the Kentucky Humane Society.

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