One of our lovely visitors shared a wonderful story with us, with a beautiful message of how important, meaningful and wonderful it is to pay kindness forward.
The story comes from Susan and Stephen Haggerty, who wrote to us with the following story.
“Hi! My husband Stephen Haggerty and I Susan Haggerty have been coming to Aruba for 15 years and noticed how many dogs there were roaming and after speaking to people from the island we learned that so many of the dogs were homeless and hungry. My husband and I wanted to do something to help so we started going to Superfoods to buy dog food and asked the local shelters to come to Lacabana to pick the food up. We would spend between 500 and 800.00 on as many bags as our car would allow.”
“We would share it on Facebook and our friends from Boston said they wanted to give us money for the food so we started a little fundraiser and we called it Feed a Dog in Aruba. Last year was the first year we did the fundraiser and we raised $3,000. This year our goal was to at least get to $3,000 and we reached $4,135! We had so many people who gave money from Boston, New England and all over the country contributed to the cause.”
“When we got to LaCabana where we are stay friends who we have met over the years came up to us and gave us cash for the food. Last year and this year we asked the rescue groups on the island to meet us at Just 4 Pet in Aruba. They supplied us with the bags of food for the last 2 years. A combination of puppy and adult dog food. We dedicated this years fundraiser to our yellow lab Brady who we lost to cancer at the age of 13 in November.”
“We really wanted to pay it forward and we thought what better way than to help the dogs in Aruba where we love to come every December for vacation. We would like thank the rescue groups in the island who work so hard everyday and Just 4 Pet who supply the food. Our friends Skip and Claire Freeman from Chicago accompanied us this year to help load the food and have helped us each year. Here are some of the pictures from last year and this year.”
