Students give animal shelter dogs a helping paw

SANDPOINT — Dogs at Panhandle Animal Shelter have a new ally in their efforts to find a home.

After securing a grant from Pedigree dog food, Panhandle Animal Shelter officials have recruited Forrest Bird Charter School students in spearheading a new adoption campaign. The class will teach students the essentials of social media and marketing and business strategies while hopefully finding some new families for a few worthy pooches.

“The kids grasp social media and know how to use it better than we do,” Panhandle Animal Shelter director Mandy Evans said. “We will teach them humane education, business and marketing skills and leverage their energy and talents to actually make a difference for the animals.”

The students got an introduction to the class Tuesday morning, when Evans dropped by the classroom to share some of the facts about shelter work in the U.S. as well as prepare them for the assignments they’ll be handling in the coming weeks. Students will be creating video diaries each week detailing their thoughts and progress, as well as developing strategies  for making the shelter’s services more accessible to residents and out-of-towners. According to Evans, only 43 percent of adoptions are local, and for a rural shelter like Panhandle Animal Shelter, that’s good news. By increasing adoptions, reducing length of stays and expanding the served region, Evans said the shelter can better serve both people and animals — and the students’ help in spreading the word will only improve matters.

“The viral nature of this is humongous,” she said. “It can go all the way across the nation, and that’s great, because we adopt out all over the nation.”

Social media will be a major part of the students’ efforts, and students will use the latest tools like iPads to record the journey and post their progress on the Internet. They’ll be guided along the way by Mack Deibel, Greater Sandpoint Chamber of Commerce communications specialist, who is teaching the fundamentals of using resources like Facebook and Twitter to get the word out. Given the fact that he’ll be working with a generation raised on social media, however, he expects that the master may well become the student.

“They’ll probably end up teaching me a thing or two,” he said.  

Panhandle Animal Shelter is one of only 11 animal shelters out of more than 200 applicants to be selected for the Pedigree grant.

In addition to the dog food company and the chamber of commerce, the class is also receiving support from Keokee, Selle Design Group, Evans Brothers Coffee Roasting, Brad Stewart, Karen Schumaker and Miki Frank.

By the end of the class, the students will submit a video to Pedigree detailing their results, and if all goes well, the company may name them the top shelter in the program. According to Evans, that’s a goal worth everyone’s best effort.

“The fact that the shelter in little Sandpoint has been selected for this grant is huge, so I definitely want us to come out on top,” she told the students.