Service Learning Project: An unmitigated success

On Saturday, July 21, my Small Military College class—"Contemporary Ethics"—met for the last time. As I've mentioned several times over the last few weeks, we had a Service Learning Project to complete during the morning of that last class meeting. Most of the class went to the local Humane Society shelter, while those who were allergic to cats and dogs (or just afraid of them) volunteered at Christ's Blessings Thrift Store*, whose proceeds go to benefit local homeless programs. The thrift store positions were, believe it or not, the only volunteer openings that Christ's Blessings had open for Saturday. (They have a pretty big volunteer staff, thankfully.)

The students who volunteered at Christ's Blessings, sadly, didn't get to interact with any homeless people. They mostly stacked boxes, washed funky-smelling donated clothing in big industrial washing machines, and put clothing on hangers. However, all four of them said they'd do it again in a heartbeat. "What we did is going to help those [homeless] people," Jamitra* said when we reconvened. "Every single one-dollar shirt we washed will either clothe them, or its sale is gonna help them have a safe place to sleep at night."

The Humane Society outing, on which I accompanied the majority of the class, was the best thing I've seen a class do in a looooong time. Although my heart was wrenched a few times, especially with those animals who were obviously loving but with handicaps such as FIV, mangled legs, or scarring from mistreatment, it was well worth the heartache.

We walked in as a group, all nine of us, and filled out the paperwork and waiver forms. Yes, we knew if we got scratched, bitten, or peed on, it wasn't the Humane Society's fault. We signed our forms and walked into the Cat Room to ask where they needed us most. A college-age white man who looked vaguely familiar was the one who'd tell us where we needed to help.

"Okay, you two like dogs, and you can go in there to help Sasha* clean out cages. You three, dogs need walking—just go outside through that door. And you—wait, you're Kitty B. Goode!"

For a brief moment, I felt like a rock star. Then it hit me where I'd seen this fellow, and I was damn happy to see him. "Oh my God! Timothy!* I was thinking about you just the other day!" Timothy* shook my hand heartily and told my SMC students, "She was one awesome English professor over at Division II University."

One SMC student replied, "She's an awesome English professor over at SMC for us, too."

That made me feel really, really good. But then we got down to work. No time for puffing up with pride when there are cats to feed and dogs to walk.

I took a ton of pictures; these are only a few of them. Since I do better with cats, I volunteered to work in the cat section, though I did visit the dogs and petted a few. (Most of my students split their time between cats and dogs.)

Foxtrot demanded that I love on her as soon as I walked into the room. She's a sweet girl, and very meowy.

Lula is a bitey-pants! Very pesky—I think she's going to need a family with a lot of energy, and a small dog or two who won't mind rough-housing.

The "socialization room" looks suspiciously like my Happy Kitten Cottage. Hmmmm.

White Cat: Please pet me, Miss Kitty. I forgot to put my tongue back in.

Gray Cat: Your head is thiiiiis big!

Thomas acts all nonchalant, but he's a love-hog. He spent ten minutes in my lap, purring nonstop.

Orange and charcoal gray: two of my favorite kitty colors.

EXTRA TOEZ!!!!!

MORE EXTRA TOEZ!!!!!

Who says cats don't have opposable thumbs?

Lacy, another charcoal-gray kitty, also demanded my attention. She was a real sweetie.

Sadie has one gray ear, and one white ear. She looks mean, but is very loving.

[sigh]

[sniffle]

Buster, a 22-pound gray tabby, had to be euthanized just a few minutes before the class arrived. His gastrointestinal problems led the vet on staff that morning to believe he had contratced feline infectious peritonitis, for which there's no cure.

Happily, the other empty cages were that way because a few cats had been taken over to the local crafts fair for an adoption feature.

Another cage was empty because my student Jimmy*, never really a cat person, found himself in love with a pair of pesky black-and-white-tuxedo kittens. He was late for our reconvening back on campus at 2pm becasue, as he told me from his cell phone, "I just pulled up to PetsMart to get a box and some litter—I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Take your time, Jimmy!" I laughed. "I think adopting a pair of kitties is a great reason to be late for class."

We all had a big laugh later when Beth*, a fiercely devoted Christian in her mid-50s (and one of my favorite students), told us about the tiny solid-black kitten she adopted from a woman who came in to surrender the poor little thing. The Humane Society has over 100 cats and simply couldn't take any more, so the supervisor on staff let the lady know they were full. "But I'll have to take it to the County Pound!" she wailed, knowning full well that the folks there, also overburdened and lacking a no-kill policy, would immediately euthanize the tiny creature. "I'll take it," Beth said before she even knew the words were coming out of her mouth. So during our break, she took her new kitty home to terrorize her mini-Dachshund mix and three adult cats.

Shannon*, a young black woman who had remained quiet for much of our three class meetings, spoke up suddenly. "I think I got more out of working the front desk than I did helping with the animals," she said. I remembered that she had walked dogs for about an hour before heading up front to help the staff.

"How so?" I asked.

She sighed. "Well, I was helping the supervisor with paperwork, and I heard a woman come in and ask if she could surrender a mama dog and 11 puppies." She paused. "But—the supervisor said that they were completely full, they had 60 dogs already. And then she told the woman about her options: she could go down the road to the County Pound, and she told the woman that the Pound would probably euthanize the mama and puppies immediately." Shannon paused and took a deep breath, trying not to cry. "And the woman started crying, and I started crying, and the supervisor started crying. And there wasn't a thing any of us could do. The lady had lost her job, and was trying to make it on just Unemployment pay, and she was really trying to do the right thing by the dogs, because they were so skinny. And right there, I saw what was so hard about the whole thing."

The class nodded. That summed it up better than anything else any of us could have said.


We talked about the whole Michael Vick dogfighting case, and how and why it's cruel, and what exactly is unethical about it. Harris*, a young black man with multiple tattoos and piercings who is the class's most staunch defender of the less fortunate, said, "Now, I'm not really a pet person. But what they do to those dogs who lose—you know, electrocution, all that stuff—it reminds me of the stories my great-granddaddy used to tell about lynchings. And black American men, of all people, doing that to creatures who are defenseless, beat up, almost dead...do they have any idea what that makes them?"

The class nodded again. Harris had spoken an ugly truth.

Although I'm not a philosophy major by any stretch of the imagination—my M.A. is in American Literature—I'm very glad that Small Military College asked me to teach this class. I have learned so much from my students, who are all of different ethnic backgrounds, ages, faiths, and socioeconomic classes. I told them all that I'd miss them terribly...and that, if D2U didn't renew my contract for Fall 2008, with any luck I'd see them back over at SMC again.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I do what I do.