See How This Eagle Scout Used His Service Project to Help Animals

If you’re a Scout (or know someone who is), here’s a dose of service project inspo for you: Zachary Rosenberg, an 18-year-old from Brooklyn, New York, used his Eagle Scout service project to help animals in shelters! 👏👏👏

Every year, millions of dogs, cats, and other animals enter shelters across the U.S. These shelters keep them safe and provide nutritious food, veterinary care, comfort, and kindness. Shelters keep them off the dangerous streets and place adoptable animals into loving homes. Helping your local shelter makes a huge positive impact, which Zachary learned when he blended two of his biggest passions—the Scouts and animals.

For Zachary’s project, he educated people about the problems shelters face, like overcrowding, lack of supplies, and limited funding. He also started a GoFundMe to raise money for food, litter, and medicine for the animals. The result? Hundreds of dollars for his local shelter. 🤯

Sooo many folks in your community care about animals, but might not realize how desperate the situation of animal homelessness is. By spreading info about the importance of supporting shelters, Zachary pulled off a super successful fundraiser. It also didn’t hurt that he gave every donor a free paw print bracelet—talk about an incentive to donate. 🐾

This Eagle project was not only important to me, but also important to my community. The effort put in by my troop and me raised significant awareness about animals in need. —Zachary

Want to start your own shelter fundraiser? Besides launching a GoFundMe or Kickstarter campaign, you could host a walkathon, vegan bake sale, garage sale, car wash, or auction. Any amount you raise will be helpful to shelters—they pay for electricity, water, internet, staff, and animal care, so every little bit helps.

Take a page out of Zachary’s book and make sure you’re educating as well as raising funds. He had tons of convos with community members about the importance of spaying, neutering, and adopting animals, which can help keep shelters from overcrowding. And don’t worry if it takes a while to get your first donations—stay strong and know that you’re helping animals just by reminding everyone to think about them.

One piece of advice I’d give to other young people who want to help animals is to be patient. The world’s issues are not going to disappear in the snap of a finger. So helping out takes patience and dedication. —Zachary

For using his service project to raise money for shelters, peta2 is presenting Zachary with our Hero to Animals Award!

Thank you so much for helping animals, Zachary, and congrats on becoming an Eagle Scout! 🥳

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There are tons of ways to help animals as part of your Scout project. See how this teen built 150 beds to give dogs in shelters the comfort they deserve.