Dec. 25—FAIRMONT — The Marion County Humane Society is one step closer to its goal of managing the feral cat population thanks to East Fairmont Middle School.
“We want to help control the stray cat population,” East Fairmont art teacher Misty Skarzinksi said. “That is the big push this year, to get free spay and neutering if you have a feral cat colony. Trap and release.”
Students at the school helped raise $4,000, which they presented to the Humane Society on Dec. 20. Skarzinski runs a collection drive focused on animal welfare at the school, which she started several years ago under the auspices of teaching children about the responsibility of being a pet owner. They started by selling T-shirts, candy bars and giving presentations, and over time, the middle school based charity grew.
The school decided to give to the Humane Society at this point in the year out of the spirit of Christmas, as well as to take advantage of available matching funds to double their contribution.
“East Fairmont Middle School is awesome,” Marion County Humane Society Board Member Paul Thobois said. “If I go back over the years, they’re probably one of our top 10 donors.”
Marion County voters recently approved a levy which will help the Humane Society operate at full capacity while also helping pay off their new building. Thobois said money from the levy won’t start filling the Humane Society’s coffers until next fiscal year, which starts July 1, 2025. The money the school raised is also being matched, bringing in $8,000 total for the Humane Society to use for current expenses, such as building maintenance and animal care, as well as starting a Trap, Neuter, Return program.
Thobois said the TNR program is still in its infancy. The Society has started doing a few classes, both in-person and livestreamed, on how to do TNR. Establishing a TNR program is important, because Fairmont has a feral cat problem that needs to be brought under control. According to the Voorhees, New Jersey-based Animal Welfare Association, “TNR benefits the community by humanely stabilizing the cat population and eliminating common unpleasant behaviors associated with mating. It reduces the number of cats killed in shelters and saves municipalities money spent on repeatedly rounding up new populations of feral cats.”
Compounding the problem, Skarzinski said irresponsible pet owners dump unwanted cats at feral cat colonies to fend for themselves where they run the risk of freezing to death in the winter, exposure to deadly disease or any other painful death. Skarzinski said one of her cats is a rescue from a feral colony that at one point must have been an indoor animal.
“His name is Lucky, because he was lucky that I was one of the ones caring and saw that this cat did not deserve to be out there like that,” she said.
EFMS Principal Debra Conover said running the school-based charity also teaches students empathy and the value of giving. Conover said Skarzinski shows educational videos on how to take care of animals and meet their needs alongside the collection drive, to really build a sense of care among students.
One student who knows the value of caring for another creature is Owen Loar, 12, who owns two dogs.
“There’s a lot of abusive people about animals and I think animals just need to be taken care of a lot because without us they probably wouldn’t survive on their own very long,” Loar said. “And we give them homes for them to be nurtured in.”
Reach Esteban at efernandez@timeswv.com