It’s Saturday morning, you’re a middle school student, and you could sleep in.
Or you could wake up early, put on work clothes, and head over to a ranch to shovel horse poop in 30-degree weather.
Ah, the dedication of our Anna’s Kindness volunteers.
Sixteen middle schoolers from across Ann Arbor braved the temps, the mud, and the manure to lend a hand to Starry Skies Equine Rescue and Sanctuary, which provides a home to horses which have been neglected, abused, or abandoned.
And yes, our fine young volunteers’ first task of the cold morning was to rake up horse poop inside the arena, put them in buckets, and carry them out. We’d love to tell you that the horse poop helped at least warm the arena on a cold morning, but … no … no such luck.
Once the arena was clear of the horse droppings, our volunteers split into two subgroups. One group, which didn’t have tall boots, walked to the back barn and … you guessed it … shoveled more poop from the stalls inside. They were watched closely by Cheetah, one of the residents who alternated between her hay breakfast and overseeing our volunteers’ work.
The other group, those with the high boots, went out into the 12-acre front pen to remove all the twigs and limbs that could possibly injure the horses. The front pen, like all the pens, was a master class in mud, thanks to all the rain, snow and sleet that had fallen during the week.
When the hard, smelly, dirty work was done, the volunteers split into four groups and groomed some of the most needy, patient, and/or passive horses in the barn. And then they all were given treats to share with any of the animals at the ranch.
Thank you to our volunteers Anika Raman, Maia and Milani Rivera, Aditi Gopalakrishnan, Smrithi Arcot, and Colin Pifer from Clague Middle School; Lex and Nina Bassett-Kennedy, Calla Berry, and Joey Ball from Slauson; Olivia Tharp and Han-Ming Cai from Tappan; Jackson Baumstark and Eva York from Scarlett; Sofia Delis from Forsythe; and Sylvie Ellis from Emerson. And thanks to former AAPS teacher Kate Lewit, who helped host this event for Anna’s Kindness.
A special thanks to Bridget with Starry Skies for always providing a wonderful volunteer experience for our Anna’s Kindness volunteers.
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