Animal Advocacy Club, created by Calli Anderson (12) and Sara Elsanjak (12), is a newer club at Hidden Valley High School which will continue through the 2024-25 school year. This club is dedicated to protecting and promoting the welfare of animals while also educating students on how to support and care about animal rights. Animal Advocacy Club strives to promote activities to help local organizations in Virginia.
Through coordinated efforts such as fundraisers, volunteer drives, and awareness campaigns, the club helps raise essential resources for public shelters and promote public awareness to Roanoke County. By organizing community programs, this club is helping foster a stronger connection between local residents and these organizations. According to one club founder Calli, this club was created because of her love for animals. She has fostered many animals, including dogs and guinea pigs, increasing her passion and need for help. She plans on helping out in every way she can.
Plans for the 2024-2025 school year are being brainstormed between the club co-founders Calli and Sara. Calli shares, “There will be a food and toy drive.” She also hopes to have goat yoga as a fun activity for this school year to show other people’s love for animals and focus on targeting people who want to help and donate. Calli and Sara plan to make all their donations to the Angels of Assisi and Franklin County Humane Society to help contribute.
Since this club is newly founded and this will be its second year at Hidden Valley, Sara stated that while starting up this club last year they faced the challenge of recruiting students to sign up for their club. With their hard work and new innovative ways of recruiting fellow students they have been able to grow their club and become the largest student founded club at Hidden Valley.
Signing up to volunteer and donate is quick and easy; it only requires an email. Sara stated, “All you have to do is email us.” With one quick email, you can get involved in the club and find out all the information; the email can either be sent to Calli Anderson or Sara Elsanjak for extra details, such as meet-up dates with the times. Sara also included how there will be a club day at Hidden Valley, which is another straightforward process to sign up and get involved if you are interested. Sara plans to post on social media to spread the club news and reach out to diverse groups who might be interested too. This club is continuing to grow and is a great way to help local animal shelters in your community.
