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Baking cookies for cats and dogs
By Xu Wenwen |
December 23, 2009, Wednesday
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ANIMAL lovers are volunteering to bake cookies and sell them to help a shelter for stray dogs and cats.
The weekend cookie baking got underway early this month at Comma Cafe, which just opened on Xipu Road.
The smell of freshly baked cookies fills the warm kitchen where various kinds of cookies in different shapes come out of the ovens. They are carefully placed in paper bags, each holding 100 grams, and tied with red ribbons. Each bag sells for 20 yuan (US$4.40).
The cookie-baking event was started by cafe owner Robin Xiao, an animal lover who has raised animals since she was a child. She now cares for two stray dogs and two stray cats.
At the end of the month, all proceeds from the cookie sale will be donated to the Hangzhou Stray Animal Shelter that rescues dogs and cats. It provides food, medicine, blankets and TLC (tender, loving, care). It also promotes adoptions. Donations will mostly be used to buy food online.
The cafe itself is paying for all ingredients.
Details about the cookie making - numbers of cookies, costs and donations - are available on Douban.com.
"How many cookies we have made, how many bags we have sold, how much money we have raised and donated can all be checked on the Website," says Xiao.
Xiao acknowledges that the cookie sale promotes her cafe, but she is also convinced that her good deeds and the involvement of more and more people will be good karma for herself, cookie bakers and cookie buyers - and the animals.
"I could just donate money, but that wouldn't educate more people about the rescue center," she says.
"I combine my cafe's specialty of baking with the desire to help animals and make more people aware."
Weekend baking
On weekends volunteers come to the cafe and make around 10 bags of cookies; they sell them during the week. At the end of the month revenue will be totaled and used to buy cat and dog food online for the rescue center.
The animal shelter opened in March 2005 in the northern part of Hangzhou. The non-governmental organization operates in a 200-square-meter metal factory warehouse. The factory owner donates the space and pays utility bills.
Today it has around 50 dogs and eight cats, all collected by volunteers or sent by well-meaning people.
It was founded by volunteers, with a core of 10 people. It handles all shelter responsibilities, including food, medical care and publicity.
Every weekend volunteers come to bathe dogs, walk them and clean the place. They visit families who adopt animals, educate the public and take stray animals to the shelter.
One of the managers is Jin Ding, a middle-aged woman who is paid out of donations. Apart from the usual chores, she uses donated clothes to make cushions for animals and warm winter clothes for puppies and dogs - they are made out of sleeves.
Though most of the cats are healthy, many dogs are old, crippled or sick when they arrive at the shelter.
"Every one of them has a story," Jin says. "This one was half-blind and abandoned, another was rescued from a butcher shop and another was hit by a car and lost one leg.
"No one knows how much they have suffered, all we can do is soothe them with love, food, money and medicine," she says.
Storm rescue
Last August when a major storm struck Hangzhou, the animal shelter was flooded and dogs had to take refuge on a small platform. Cats climbed on a cabinet.
Volunteers from all over the city converged to help the animals. Men, women and children waded through polluted water to move animals to safe places. Many people fell sick from the weather and dirty water.
Five or six dogs drowned and all the animals' food, cat litter and supplies were ruined.
When news spread on the Internet, many people donated money, food and blankets to the animal shelter.
Xiao believes that such misfortunes could be avoided if more people helped stray animals.
She came up with the idea of baking cookies to help animals when she opened her cafe last month.
Xiao and the kind-hearted cookie makers are just a few of thousands of people who have helped the shelter. In a book it lists all the good deeds and donations by people from all over Hangzhou.
College students donated 185 yuan from a campus activity to collect loose change. Another student team cleans the shelter regularly and collects old clothing for the animals. A Taoist priest came all the way from Mt Wutai, Shanxi Province, to donate several thousand yuan.
Jin encourages people to adopt strays but says animals need love and care, not just a new home.
Ke Le, one of the shelter founders, says married adopters with children are preferable as they are stable. Don't feed animals just anything; some foods are not good for them, Ke warns.
"Please take good care of them, since once they have been injured they are more timid and fearful. Never abandon them, please raise them until they die."
Hangzhou Stray Animal Shelter
Hours: Daily, 9am-5pm
Address: 471 Shixiang Rd, inside Xin Da Metal Factory
Comma Cafe
Address: 1615 Xipu Rd
Tel: (0571) 8779-6297
Cookie making Website: www.douban.com/event/11304804/
The weekend cookie baking got underway early this month at Comma Cafe, which just opened on Xipu Road.
The smell of freshly baked cookies fills the warm kitchen where various kinds of cookies in different shapes come out of the ovens. They are carefully placed in paper bags, each holding 100 grams, and tied with red ribbons. Each bag sells for 20 yuan (US$4.40).
The cookie-baking event was started by cafe owner Robin Xiao, an animal lover who has raised animals since she was a child. She now cares for two stray dogs and two stray cats.
At the end of the month, all proceeds from the cookie sale will be donated to the Hangzhou Stray Animal Shelter that rescues dogs and cats. It provides food, medicine, blankets and TLC (tender, loving, care). It also promotes adoptions. Donations will mostly be used to buy food online.
The cafe itself is paying for all ingredients.
Details about the cookie making - numbers of cookies, costs and donations - are available on Douban.com.
"How many cookies we have made, how many bags we have sold, how much money we have raised and donated can all be checked on the Website," says Xiao.
Xiao acknowledges that the cookie sale promotes her cafe, but she is also convinced that her good deeds and the involvement of more and more people will be good karma for herself, cookie bakers and cookie buyers - and the animals.
"I could just donate money, but that wouldn't educate more people about the rescue center," she says.
"I combine my cafe's specialty of baking with the desire to help animals and make more people aware."
Weekend baking
On weekends volunteers come to the cafe and make around 10 bags of cookies; they sell them during the week. At the end of the month revenue will be totaled and used to buy cat and dog food online for the rescue center.
The animal shelter opened in March 2005 in the northern part of Hangzhou. The non-governmental organization operates in a 200-square-meter metal factory warehouse. The factory owner donates the space and pays utility bills.
Today it has around 50 dogs and eight cats, all collected by volunteers or sent by well-meaning people.
It was founded by volunteers, with a core of 10 people. It handles all shelter responsibilities, including food, medical care and publicity.
Every weekend volunteers come to bathe dogs, walk them and clean the place. They visit families who adopt animals, educate the public and take stray animals to the shelter.
One of the managers is Jin Ding, a middle-aged woman who is paid out of donations. Apart from the usual chores, she uses donated clothes to make cushions for animals and warm winter clothes for puppies and dogs - they are made out of sleeves.
Though most of the cats are healthy, many dogs are old, crippled or sick when they arrive at the shelter.
"Every one of them has a story," Jin says. "This one was half-blind and abandoned, another was rescued from a butcher shop and another was hit by a car and lost one leg.
"No one knows how much they have suffered, all we can do is soothe them with love, food, money and medicine," she says.
Storm rescue
Last August when a major storm struck Hangzhou, the animal shelter was flooded and dogs had to take refuge on a small platform. Cats climbed on a cabinet.
Volunteers from all over the city converged to help the animals. Men, women and children waded through polluted water to move animals to safe places. Many people fell sick from the weather and dirty water.
Five or six dogs drowned and all the animals' food, cat litter and supplies were ruined.
When news spread on the Internet, many people donated money, food and blankets to the animal shelter.
Xiao believes that such misfortunes could be avoided if more people helped stray animals.
She came up with the idea of baking cookies to help animals when she opened her cafe last month.
Xiao and the kind-hearted cookie makers are just a few of thousands of people who have helped the shelter. In a book it lists all the good deeds and donations by people from all over Hangzhou.
College students donated 185 yuan from a campus activity to collect loose change. Another student team cleans the shelter regularly and collects old clothing for the animals. A Taoist priest came all the way from Mt Wutai, Shanxi Province, to donate several thousand yuan.
Jin encourages people to adopt strays but says animals need love and care, not just a new home.
Ke Le, one of the shelter founders, says married adopters with children are preferable as they are stable. Don't feed animals just anything; some foods are not good for them, Ke warns.
"Please take good care of them, since once they have been injured they are more timid and fearful. Never abandon them, please raise them until they die."
Hangzhou Stray Animal Shelter
Hours: Daily, 9am-5pm
Address: 471 Shixiang Rd, inside Xin Da Metal Factory
Comma Cafe
Address: 1615 Xipu Rd
Tel: (0571) 8779-6297
Cookie making Website: www.douban.com/event/11304804/
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