Samantha Haney

Juniors Aditya Pall (left) and Raghav Dandamudi (right) are collecting stuffed bears, donated by Lancers. For their fundraiser, Paws for a Cause, collected stuffed animals will be donated to BJC Hospital and Country Acres Pet Resort.

To expand upon FBLA’s community service event, juniors Raghav Dandamudi and Aditya Pall created Paws for a Cause, a drive collecting new or used stuffed animals which will be donated to children’s hospitals and animal shelters.

“The stuffed animals will be donated to BJC Children’s Hospital and the Ronald McDonald House. Stuffed animals in worse condition and that are more used will go to [the Country Acres Pet Resort],” Pall said.

The two of them are the only ones working on the drive, but they plan to collaborate with the robotics team in the future.

Students with donations should drop off stuffed animals with their homeroom teachers. Collection will happen in two waves.

“This [first] wave is ending on Dec. 15 but we will be running another one around Valentine’s Day,” Dandamundi said.

During these waves, the stuffed animals will be picked up and driven to the specified locations for donations.

“We will get [stuffed animals to hospitals] by picking them up from AcLab homerooms and driving them [to the hospital] by Christmas to surprise the children,” Pall said.

They want the stuffed animals to be distributed equally among the children at these hospitals, as well as the dogs at shelters.

“Our goal with this drive is to make less fortunate children more happy during the holidays, so any number of stuffed animals would work fine with us. We would like to have enough so everyone gets at least one,” Pall said.