Art for Animals is the name of the project first graders undertake each year at Forest Ridge Academy. First graders love and care about animals -- tame and wild. Each year the class visits the local Humane Society in Gary, Indiana and immediately wants to help.
The director, Betty Clayton, has taken on the monumental task of sheltering, feeding, and caring for several thousand neglected, abandoned, and mistreated animals in the Gary area each year. Support she gets from the city is minimal and much of her time that isn't taken up in actual rescuing or caring for animals is devoted to raising money to support the shelter which is run with the help of a handful of committed staff and volunteers. It is called operating on a shoestring -- year in and year out.

Forest Ridge Academy first graders became involved when their teacher, Judy Tomera, read an article about Betty Clayton in the local newspaper seven years ago. It told of the struggle she had undertaken to create a no-kill shelter in Gary's Miller area. Mrs. Tomera kept that article in the back of her mind for weeks. It would pop up in her dreams until one morning she woke up with an idea. Why not link children's love of animals with their love of art If you ask a first grader if they can sing, their immediate response is "yes." Ask them if they can dance the 'yes' is followed by a demonstration. Ask them if they can paint and the response is an enthusiastic, "Of course."

The children begin the project by learning how to mix colors, to draw dogs that look like dogs and cats that look like cats. You can mostly tell the difference. And they learn to create interesting colorful pictures that are framed and sold. Note cards are made from the prints of the paintings and some years posters as well. All this flurry of creativity generates over $1000 each and every year since the program started six years ago.

Each year if there are left over paintings (seldom), posters, or note cards, the Center for the Visual and Performing Arts in nearby Munster, Indiana willingly puts them in their gift shop. And every year Betty Clayton finds wonderful ways to spend the money that comes her way from the children's efforts. Lots of times it goes for food, medicine, animal enclosures, and cleaning supplies but sometimes it goes for animal toys, cushions, hammocks, and even comfortable floor grates to keep the dogs and puppies up off of the concrete.