As my holiday gift to BARK! blog readers, I thought I would tell you about an extraordinary young woman I met who exemplifies everything meaningful about the season, and all year long.
Abby Serfilippi started helping animals in the fourth grade.
At St. Thomas the Apostle School in Delmar where she goes to school, each grade does some type of service as a class. Her class’ service project was to donate money and supplies to Capital Region animal shelters. Since her family has adopted several rescued animals, she wanted to help out even more. So Abby and her mother began making crafts and selling them at various craft fairs, then donating the money to animal rescue groups in need. I met them both at the recent holiday expo sponsored by the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce where they had a table of their crafts for sale.
Abby is now an eighth grader at St. Thomas. Over the past four years, she and her mother have raised $2,000 for several area animal sanctuaries and rescue groups including Catskill Animal Sanctuary, Farm Sanctuary, Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society, Animal Protective Foundation, the Critter Connection, and North Country Wild Care.
Betsy Messenger, Kathy Stevens, Abby Serfilippi, Theresa Heilsberg
Over the past few years, Abby learned about animal abuse affecting farm and fur trade animals. As an animal advocate, she mounted a display at the Bethlehem Public Library about animal abuse on factory farms. Using money she raised, she sponsored a visit by Kathy Stevens, the author of two books and founder of Catskill Animal Sanctuary, as well as Betsy Messenger, the education director of the Sanctuary, to come to her school and speak to students about their mission of rescuing abused farm animals.
Abby is passionate about the cause. She says “I will continue to raise awareness about animal abuse in all forms. I also will continue to raise money for all the wonderful groups we’ve been supporting for the past four years. And most importantly, I will continue to inform others about how they too can be a voice for the animals.”
For more information or to donate, contact Abby at mserfili@nycap.rr.com.
I wish you all happy holidays, peace and the companionship of animals in the new year.
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