Girl Scout gives the Salem Animal Shelter a facelift!

The Salem Animal Shelter has a new look thanks to a local Girl Scout.

Sarah Fisher, 16, recently completed a three-and-a-half week remodeling project at the shelter as part of her Girl Scout Gold Award, which is the highest achievement within the Girl Scouts of America. The project included cleaning, organizing and painting the inside of the building.

“If you saw it before, you know there’s been a big improvement!” she said, as she gave tours of the building Saturday morning. An open house was held at the shelter to show the public the work that was done.

The once white walls of the kennels are now green, brown and red stripped, accented with paw prints. Fisher said she got the idea for the color scheme from a bowl of potpourri on her mom’s living room table.

“My mom told me I had to choose a color of paint and I had no idea what color to use,” she said. She liked the look of the colors on the table and decided that would work and would look good with the metal fencing used for the animals’ cages.

Fisher said choosing what to do for her Gold Award project was easy. Her dad, Trent, is a veterinarian in town, so it seemed natural for her to volunteer at the shelter. Fisher plans to study exotic veterinary medicine at Purdue University in the future.
She said she visited the shelter awhile ago and found the inside of the building to be very depressing. However, Fisher said she realizes that Animal Control Officer Jim Deich has a lot on his plate and he doesn’t have time to worry with things like organization and cleaning. She is glad she was able to help.

“I wanted to help him out and make the shelter look nice,” she said. Fisher cleaned everything from the bathroom to the front office, even painting doors and building shelves. “It really gave us more space to work with,” she said, pointing to a shelf that was erected to hold cleaning supplies, instead of the floor. She also put up a peg board to organize the colors and leashes for the animals.
Deich acknowledged that he doesn’t have a lot of extra time at the shelter and said he really appreciated Fisher’s hard work in organizing the shelter, including his desk.

“He had post-it notes everywhere!” said Fisher. “So I typed them all out and organized them on sheets so now they are all together.”
A self-professed neat freak, Fisher even organized the dog and cat food and treats by flavors.

Even though Fisher is done with the main project, she still plans to keep in touch with the shelter and has talked to City of Salem Mayor David Bower about being on a committee to help with the shelter’s building expansion.

“They really need more room,” she said. “They have some funding, but not enough to add on like they need to.”
Fisher said anyone who would like to help the shelter can make donations by sending money to HSWC, 204 W. Joseph St., Salem. For more information about the shelter, visit www.hswcin.org.

Fisher is the daughter of Trent and Katherine Fisher of Salem.

-M. Spaulding