Meena Kumar’s story is one that could be turned into a movie. She was abandoned on a college campus in India when she was just a baby. Her life at that moment was a complete uncertainty. She was soon sent to an orphanage and after a couple of years was adopted by an Indian family. This set her life on a new trajectory. Today she is a high school student with a strong heart and is doing whatever she can for the abandoned pets of the world.
Meena Kumar faced adversity from a young age. Being abandoned as a baby is obviously something that she was too young to understand but still had a large impact on her life. She was lucky enough to be sent to an orphanage and after a couple of years found her family home. Years later the family would move to America and Meena now lives in San Jose, California. Her father works for Intel and so the family lives comfortably.
Meena was inspired by the fact that her family rescued her. She saw the impact that this rescue had on her life and wanted to help in some way too. She decided to take the same idea but for dogs. Dogs feel emotions too and so many are abandoned that there is a huge problem in dog shelters of overcrowding. It feels like the expression “a dog is for life not just for Christmas” has been around for a long time and yet we still see growing numbers of abandoned dogs in shelters.
When Meena was young her family took her to visit a local shelter called Muttville. It is a home for older dogs that have been abandoned and is a place for them to live out their final years. The moment she went there she fell in love. Suddenly she was surrounded by dogs and she couldn’t wipe the smile from her face. She wanted to volunteer immediately but was told she was too young to be allowed.
Meena was faced with a choice. She could either wait the years required until she could volunteer or she could take matters into her own hands. It is clear what she chose to do. She decided that if she couldn’t volunteer she could still have a positive impact by raising money for the cause. She decided to set up her own business to help. The business is called Pet Fairy Services where Meena will look after pets for a few days if their families are aware and she will feed them and take to them to the beach and keep them happy and entertained.
The business has now been running for a couple of years and Meena has managed to raise $7,000 so far. She was delighted with this amount and was going to donate it to Muttville when her father told her some good news. The company he works for, Intel, offers a program where any charitable amount donated will be matched by the company. This means that instead of donating $7,000 to the organization she was able to donate $14,000.
The impact this amount of money will have on a small organization like Muttville can not be overstated. It has the potential to allow the company to house more dogs and save more lives. This incredible act of kindness from Meena shows that when we put our mind to something, nothing can stop us. Although she was too young to volunteer at the shelter she found an incredible way to help the shelter and spend more time with animals too.
How one girl helped so many elderly dogs
