LEONARDTOWN, Md. — A group of young artists in St. Mary’s County is using creativity for a cause — helping shelter pets find their forever homes. Through colorful portraits and heartfelt campaigns, students from local elementary and high schools are proving that even small acts of compassion can lead to big changes for animals in need.
At first, the fourth grader didn’t want to participate. But something shifted during the next art class.
“I said, ‘Honey, you’ve got to do something because these animals need to be adopted,’” said Yvonne Patton, an art teacher at Mechanicsville Elementary School. “He got up, went over to the table and said, ‘I want to do Gus.’”
Gus was a shelter cat at the Tri-County Animal Shelter with three black spots on his face — details the student carefully drew on green paper. From then on, he asked Patton every day, “How’s my cat?”
When Patton told him Gus had been adopted, she said his whole face lit up. “His face cracked into a smile from one end to the other. He was just so, so excited,” she said.
That moment captured the spirit of a collaborative project between Patton and Chopticon High School art teacher Jaime Shafer. While Patton’s fourth and fifth graders supported the Tri-County Animal Shelter, Shafer’s art students painted and sculpted animals from the St. Mary’s County Animal Adoption & Resource Center.
St. Mary’s County Animal Shelter Supervisor Tina James said the shelter team will display the art alongside the animals and invite adopters to pick up the portraits of their pets.
“The art is very much reflective of the diversity in what draws people to different animals,” James said. “One person may come in looking for a goofy-looking orange cat, and someone else might want a long-haired gray one.”
Patton’s students each picked an animal to draw and wrote persuasive ads to go along with them. Their work was displayed in the Leonardtown and Charlotte Hall Food Lion stores, and the school held a donation drive for toys and supplies.
Shafer’s high school art students, meanwhile, chose animals from the shelter’s website and painted or sculpted them during class, lunch or at home. “The kids were so excited,” Shafer said. “They really wanted to do a good job. I had one young man who probably spent like seven hours painting his little cat that he selected.”
Her student Ruby Schneider painted a cat named Comet with streaking stars and the animal’s name in the background. Another painted a blind cat. Some chose pets with complicated stories — like Gilbert, who had been adopted and returned to the shelter after not getting along with another animal.
“When I told the kids that, they just thought it was heartbreaking,” Shafer said. “They were really empathetic.”
Patton said she witnessed a similar empathy. One student was so inspired by her classmate’s drawing of a husky named Blizzard that she convinced her dad to adopt the dog. “He says, ‘I had to go buy a harness for that dog,’” Patton said, laughing. “I said, ‘I know, huskies are pretty fast.’”
In total, four animals were adopted because of the elementary display, Patton said.
Shafer is moving to Germany this summer but said she hopes Patton will carry the project forward.
Both teachers emphasized the deeper lessons the project offered.
“It was more kindness than I’ve seen in a long time,” Patton said. “People say kids aren’t what they’re supposed to be — but if you teach a child to be respectful, and you show them what it looks like, then they do it. Sometimes they’re more grown-up than the adults are.”
Shafer agreed.
“I just want students to understand that art isn’t necessarily the self-contained little world where you’re just doing your own thing,” she said. “You can help your community, you can promote positivity, you can think about the greater good.”
All of Shafer’s pets have been adopted from shelters. She has two dogs, a chihuahua named Noodle and a chiweenie named Ono.
“I just hope that the community sees it, and instead of opting to shop for a pet, they go and adopt one.”
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