South Fayette
freshmen earn
prestigious Girl
Scout Silver
Awards through
Washington
Area Humane
WAHS, located on Route 136 in Eighty
rying to juggle good grades and
Four, is a nonprofit, no-kill shelter, with the
participate in school sports or clubs
Society
mission “to provide shelter, safety and food
might be enough of a challenge
for the orphaned and abused animals of
for most eighth graders, but not for
Service
Washington County with the goal of placing
Maria Albert, Hayley Black and Mary Kate
them in loving homes.” It is funded solely by
Licciardello. After successfully completing a
private contributions.
service project for the Washington Area Humane
Project
T
Laurelle Dicks is the manager of shelter
Society (WAHS), the three, now South Fayette
operations at WAHS.
High School freshmen, were recently granted the
Kathy
“Maria, Hayley and Mary Kate all did volunteer
Girl Scout Silver Award, the highest award a Girl Scout
Rudolph
hours here at the shelter for the Girl Scouts,” said Dicks.
cadette can receive.
“They spent most of their time taking different shelter dogs
Earning the award began with choosing a topic that was
to Petco on Sundays for Adoption Days. The girls would give
important to the scouts, which was their love of animals.
exposure to our animals and at the same time find them
They then created and executed a
a new forever home. We value our
community service project with
volunteers here at the Humane
50 service hours that revolved
Society more than they can imagine.
around that topic. The scouts spent
Our volunteers give all of our animals
the fall of 2012 to the summer of
special attention that they deserve.”
2013 completing their project and
Besides giving back to the
exceeded their required amount of
community, the scouts enjoyed their
service hours.
service project.
“We wanted to find dogs and
“I liked seeing the people adopt
cats homes because we all loved
the dogs from the shelter since they
animals so much,” said Black,
had been there for such a long time,”
who has been a Girl Scout since
said Albert, who aspires to be an
kindergarten. Her family’s dog
orthodontist. “I also liked reading the
was rescued from Eleventh Hour
stories about the different animals from
Rescue in New Jersey. “They
the information we got about them;
deserve happy homes where
from how long they had been at the
families can enjoy them.”
shelter, if they had something wrong with them, or what kind of
With the support and supervision of their mothers, Kim Albert,
breed they were.”
Heather Black and troop leader Beth Licciardello, the scouts
Other benefits of the project were the leadership skills that the
took different shelter dogs from the WAHS to Petco, located in
scouts developed by talking to all kinds of different people.
Washington County, on Sundays for the store’s Adoption Days
“It was hard for me to approach strangers at Petco and ask them
event. They also approached customers with a binder of the
to read about the animals at the shelter,” said Licciardello, who
descriptions of other animals that were waiting at the shelter to be
has been a Girl Scout since kindergarten and would like to be a
adopted. Their goal was to persuade people to adopt the animals
and raise awareness about the shelter. At the end of the project, the veterinarian one day. “I am the type of person who waits for people
to approach me. But part of the project was to help us become
team was able to find permanent homes for 14 dogs.
“It was such a feeling of accomplishment when we got one of the leaders in our community and I tried to do that. It was fun to talk
dogs adopted,” said Black. “It felt really nice that they were getting
a home.”
Continued on page 32
South Fayette | Summer 2014 | icmags.com 31