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LOVE ON PAWS
The Tiger Frances Foundation believes the root of animal cruelty lies within the cycle of abuse of humans and non-humans alike. We’re breaking that cycle by fostering empathy, compassion, and a sense of responsibility where it has the best chance to transform lives: among children, through in-school and after-school educational programs.
For our first foray, our volunteers used their rescue dogs to help Girl Scouts earn their pet-care badges. The results were so positive, we knew we found our niche. We immediately started looking for ways to recreate the experience. And the Love On Paws (LOP) program was born. |
For more info or to add us to your classroom:
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Our official outreach began in 2014, in partnership with School on Wheels, a skid row program in downtown Los Angeles where homeless kids receive tutoring. We’ve since expanded to Communities in Schools, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and are actively looking for additional partnerships.
So how does it work? We take a rotating group of our rescue and foster animals to school sites each month. All of our animals have been carefully screened for temperament and most have been in our care for a minimum of two months. Children only interact with the pets alongside our adult volunteers in a designated area, and only when their teacher says it’s time to do so. |
We at TTFF are proponents of the pebble in the pond theory: one kind and loving thought, word, or gesture ripples outwards – inspiring your classmate, neighbor, community, and eventually the world, to join you. |
Before our visit, the teacher or site organizer chooses an assignment or activity from our curriculum, which was designed for LOP by a teacher to meet Common Core standards. Since our main goal is to foster empathy and compassion, we engage the children in observation, comparing and contrasting the animals to themselves as seeing, feeling, emotional beings. They get to learn the pets’ rescue stories and the hardships they’ve overcome, which are often not unlike their own.
Now it’s time to get to work! The results are inspiring artwork, stories, and fact-sheets. The kids do their best so they can finish quickly and spend as much time as possible with their furry visitors: the dogs, cats, rats, and… turtle, who thinks he’s a dog! |
Then students get to apply what they’ve just learned while having fun with the animals. They play with them, hold them, and even read to them. Sometimes, simply sitting quietly and petting a calm animal, who loves unconditionally, can greatly impact a child’s understanding of their own self-worth and their place in the world.
When we’re done, the students can’t wait for us to come back and are already looking for ways to help their new animal-friends. To learn more, check out the video below featuring Miss Allison from School on Wheels, the teacher who helped design our curriculum! |