Volunteer
You are welcome to be a volunteer in
one of the animal areas while you are
here visiting the Sanctuary. Find out
how to sign up!

Find out more about the landmark work
being done in our No More Homeless
Pets staff!

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Network? Join our Network - it's free!

Humane Education
Best Friends NextGen

Best Friends NextGen is our new online resource for young people to become involved with activities and issues about our animal companions. Scheduled to launch in the summer of 2009, the Best Friends NextGen website is a place where young kids, tweens and teens will find projects and ideas on how they can help animals within their community. They will also see what other kids are doing! By uploading their stories and photos, they can share their experiences and encourage other kids in supervised and organized activities benefiting local shelters, rescue groups and sanctuaries as well as the animals at Best Friends.

What are the targeted ages?
Projects and programs are written for school aged children

      Primary - ages 5 through 8
      Juniors - ages 9 through 12
      Teens - ages 13 through 17

Downloadable blueprints for outreach projects to help animals in your community!
There will be projects for each age group focusing on different ways that you can help animals in your community. Become involved in helping all kinds of animals by doing projects with your classroom, faith group, after-school program, community programs, neighborhood or family!

Different types of projects
There are different kinds of projects for different needs and interests.

      Service projects
           These are either hands-on with animals or
             close to hands-on-projects that directly
             affect the well-being and/or care of animals 

      Community events projects
            These include fund-raising drives, letter
              writing to newspapers and legislators, etc.
              - projects that involve the community for
              the benefit of the animals 

      Action projects
            These include projects that are art related
              such as visual arts (drawing, painting,
              sculpture, photography, etc), performing
              arts (writing or performing plays, music,
              dance, etc), arts and crafts, commercial
              arts (making posters or ads) and building
              things (dog and cat houses, climbing posts,
              birdhouses)

Parent and teacher involvement
Projects are downloadable from our Parent and Teacher section. We encourage teachers and other educators to use these exciting new project blueprints to create dynamic after school programs, community youth programs, enrichment opportunities in existing shelters and rescues wanting to develop their humane education opportunities and for faith youth group activities and outreach.

Parents and teachers must become members of Best Friends in order to download the projects, which include an 'educator version' of each project for helping to guide youngsters through the activity. Besides putting the parent and teacher in charge of the activity, this also encourages families to work together.

Uploading kids projects
We will also be posting some of the most inspiring of the kids' projects, photos and videos in their efforts to help animals. Over the past few years, we have received countless stories of the wonderful work that kids around the country have been doing.

Kidsafe blogging
The Best Friends NextGen website will have a place for kids to express their concerns and ideas as well as sharing their experiences. Information will be reviewed for appropriate content before it is posted. Any identifying or inappropriate content will be removed.

Games and research information for school
As our Best Friends NextGen website grows in content, we will have games and resource links that will help kids to do research projects on animals as well as to become more informed on subjects of interest.

LAUNCH!
Our Best Friends NextGen website is due to launch during the summer of 2009, so come back soon to learn more!

To find out more...
If you would like more information on the Best Friends NextGen website or projects, please contact Jennifer Andrews in the Best Friends Humane Education department at jennifera@bestfriends.org