HELPING NEEDY PETS—Hillside Middle School leadership students Suzanne Lance, 12; Nathan Lopez, 13; and Jessica Lopez, 13, show off a week’s worth of donations for the Humane Society Ventura County, including more than 350 pounds of pet food. IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers While many organizations are helping families keep food on the table over the holidays, the students at one local middle school decided to focus on the smaller, furrier members of households.

The kids at Hillside Middle School have been collecting donations for animals, placing them under two Christmas trees they’ve erected in the school’s library.

“People are struggling to feed themselves and they’re having such a hard time keeping everyone dressed and fed,” said Hillside principal Sara Davis. “What would be tragic is having to give up a beloved pet. It would just be another blow to a family.”

The school is collecting everything from pet food to dog toys to cat bowls for The Humane Society and Care & Share in Simi Valley. The organizations are facilitating pet donation giveaways so people don’t have to give up their pets.

Davis said she read an article in a newspaper about animal shelters seeing a big increase in pets being left at shelters and given away.

“The article really touched me,” she said. “We just thought this would be a great way to give back to the community.”

The Care & Share tree in the library has angel ornaments with gift requests from families for the holidays. The other tree, for The Humane Society, has photographs of various animals in local shelters. Students are piling up blankets, leashes, bowls and food—anything that is needed to care for animals.

Jill Boucher was an instructional aide and campus supervisor at Hillside for 19 years before retiring in June. She’s still active as a volunteer and has been a large part of the pet donation drive.

“I think it’s great,” Boucher said. “We’ve really got a lot of stuff—huge bags of dog food and cat food. Some of the kids spent their allowance and brought in little stockings filled with stuff.”

Davis herself has two Labrador retrievers, one a rescue dog.

“We have quite a few animal lovers here,” Davis said. “It’s something you don’t realize or think about really. But losing a pet would be pretty traumatic.”

Boucher agreed.

“They can’t speak for themselves, so someone has to speak for them,” she said. “If we can do anything to help them, we want to.”

Davis said it was “staggering” to see how crowded with donations the trees had become. The Humane Society came this week to pick up their items.