By Lisa Carolin
Chelsea High School junior Katie Moore has been awarded the Humane Youth Award by the Humane Society of Huron Valley (HSHV).
The 16 year old has been volunteering at the HSHV since 2015 and has spent much of that time at Tiny Lions Cat Cafe, an adoption center in Ann Arbor, which helps find homes for hundreds of cats every year.
“I love the environment of the Humane Society,” said Katie Moore. “Everybody is so genuinely kind and dedicated to animals, and it’s an amazing feeling knowing that you’re doing something good for animal welfare.”
Moore volunteers once or twice a week on weekend mornings.
“Mostly, I clean at Tiny Lions,” said Moore. “Sometimes I feed the cats and do any other odd jobs that need to be done. I also get to interact with customers, which is really nice!”
Moore has loved cats since she was a little girl, and her mom, Alexandra Moore, is also a fan of cats. The family started fostering felines when Katie was little.
“It’s just like having a baby, except you may have five at a time instead of just one,” said Alexandra Moore. “Katie always enjoyed inviting her friends over to socialize with the kittens (one of the goals of fostering kittens is to get them used to human interaction), and particularly loved bottle feeding them when we had a set who were not quite ready to give up their bottles yet.”
Since then, Alexandra Moore says there has been a lot of driving duty to support Katie’s volunteering efforts, though Katie will soon be getting her driver’s license.
Katie’s family strongly supports her volunteering.
“Volunteering is obviously a great way to give back to the community; to learn dedication and commitment; to learn real-world work and understand what it is to be part of a team,” said Alexandra Moore. “Some days Katie is tired, but she knows she has committed to the work and wants to be there to help, so she gets up and goes. She really feels a responsibility to the Humane Society, and I’m so glad that she has found something she loves that she wants to help with.”
When asked if her volunteer work at the Humane Society might influence her career choice, Katie Moore responded, “I really love working for a genuinely good nonprofit and helping out animals, so in the future I would love to have a job that gives me that kind of warm feeling in the pit of my stomach.”
