Falmouth Betty White Challenge Encourages Donations To Animal Causes
The nationwide social media trend of honoring Betty White through donations made to causes that help animals has made its way to Falmouth.
The Falmouth Betty White Challenge, spearheaded by Falmouth Dog Park president Barbara P. Schneider of Sandcastle Drive, is a localized effort asking people to donate whatever they can to various local animal shelters and organizations in town. The idea originated on social media and quickly sparked smaller, more locally directed campaigns urging people to carry on Betty White’s legacy of loving and helping animals.
“This national movement started almost immediately after her passing, and I am always a person who likes to try to bring groups together for a good purpose and… I like to localize things,” Ms. Schneider said. “One of the things that I could do was look into all the information that was needed for people to keep their Betty White recognitions local, so that’s all I did.”
Ms. Schneider reached out to local groups, including Friends of Falmouth Dogs, Cape Cod Wildlife Center, Serenity Farm, The Osprey Project, and People For Cats, and assembled all of the information to make it easy for interested parties to find exactly what they need.
Kylie Breen, a marketing major at Endicott College and a member of the dog park’s board of trustees, worked with Ms. Schneider to compile the information and create a webpage on the Falmouth Dog Park website. The page lists information from nine different organizations in town that benefit animals and includes information on making monetary donations, volunteering, or donating items from a wish list available for each of the organizations.
Response on social media has been great, Ms. Schneider said. As a former educator, she is excited about the opportunity to educate the public on the different local efforts to help animals, and to foster a collaborative funding effort for organizations that often feel like they are working against each other more than they are working together.
“We’ve all operated with blinders on to the other organizations in a lot of ways,” she said. “The truth is we’re all doing the same thing; we’re trying to work for the benefit of animals in Falmouth. This was an opportunity to bring us all together and educate the public on how many organizations are really helping animals in their town.”
Betty White would have celebrated her 100th birthday on January 17, which is said to be the culmination of the national-scale Betty White Challenge, but Falmouth’s efforts will continue throughout the month of January.
“I think anybody who can offer something during the month of January should do so in Betty White’s memory and also just in the concept that we’ve all gotten so much from our fuzzy friends over the last two years, and this is a great time to be grateful to shelters and all the places that are trying to help keep animals in their homes as well,” Ms. Schneider said.
More information about the Falmouth Betty White Challenge can be found on the Falmouth Dog Park website under the ‘What’s New?’ tab.