PORTRAITS for PAWS

Willamette Primary School first-graders painted portraits of

By Kara Hansen

The West Linn Tidings, May 21, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

ADVERTISEMENTS

<< Prev. Page 1 | 2

After a lesson on how to draw “a whimsical cat,” and with a choice of whether to use her model or a process of their own, McCormick let the children go to work.

“Giving my students a step by step lesson on drawing a cat was my way of building their artistic confidence so that regardless of whether they stuck with my model, they all felt successful and proud of their work,” she said. “I’m super proud, too – the portraits are beautiful.”

Aside from temporarily beautifying the shelter, the colorful images could ease some of the PAWS operation’s burden.

Fewer people are adopting pets this year, possibly because of the expense, shelter founder Sharon Murphy said.

Meanwhile, “donations have dropped way off, and requests for help have skyrocketed,” she said. “The requests are up. Everything else is down.”

Funded almost entirely by donations, the nonprofit relies on the generosity and compassion of others. Adoption fees rarely cover a cat’s costs while living at PAWS, according to the shelter.

About 100 cats live there now, while another 50 or 60 kittens are in foster care. Many of those kittens are orphans, which means volunteers feed them by bottle every few hours. Founded in 1999, the PAWS shelter is one of few programs willing to accept orphan kittens, Murphy said.

Helping support the shelter they’ve grown to care about has additional value for students, said McCormick, their teacher.

“I want my students to feel empowered to make a genuine difference in the community – not just asking their parents for money but creating beautiful work that people from the neighborhood will truly want to buy,” McCormick said. “I hope they’ll come away from this project feeling like they have the ability to continue to do meaningful work for their community, even at such a young age. If they can feel that empowerment now, imagine what they’ll accomplish when they’re older.”

Students’ original artwork costs $20 per portrait at the shelter, located at 1741 Willamette Falls Drive in West Linn.

<< Prev. Page 1 | 2