Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

29 December 2010

By Tania Bashford

BRISBANE, Queensland - The River Terrace Young Single Adult Ward in Brisbane launched early into the Christmas spirit by helping with the emergency distribution of the RSPCA's annual Christmas catalogue.

The Brisbane RSPCA became desperate when their usual catalogue delivery method fell through so close to Christmas, but Christmas was saved when the YSA Ward said they would step up and fill the void for what is one of the RSPCA's biggest fund-raising ventures of the year.

Early one Saturday morning the YSA helpers gathered at the Kangaroo Point Cliffs where they were first greeted by the Elders Quorum and Relief Society Presidencies who graciously cooked breakfast for the volunteers. They were joined at the breakfast by Hamish Mackenzie, a local representative of the RSPCA, who helped coordinate the distribution.

Working in teams, each couple was assigned a delivery area, and within only a few short hours, the group was able to deliver thousands of catalogues to the local community.

What made this effort from more than 40 YSA most impressive was that the night before was the regional YSA dance, so most were running on only a couple hours of sleep. The service and sacrifice of sleep was greatly appreciated by the RSPCA representative who explained how the Christmas period is unfortunately one of their busiest times when it comes to the abandoning of unwanted pets.