Residents of Somerby at St. Vincent’s One Nineteen Senior Living Community and Boy Scouts from Troop 119 are teaming up to make dog treats for local animal shelters.
The seniors and scouts have cooking sessions twice a week at Somerby. The program helps seniors with memory and physical hand-eye coordination.
So far, more than 6,000 dog treats have been made in the month that the volunteers have been baking.
Jennifer Miller, Shelby County Humane Society executive director, is thrilled to partner with the program to help shelter dogs.
“The biscuits are a great resource for us, because with our limited funds we can’t go out of our way to get dog treats,” she said.
Right now, the treats are being shared between the Birmingham and Shelby County Humane Societies. Somerby hopes to extend the project to its other three senior living facilities in Mobile, Alpharetta, Ga., and Mt. Pleasant, S.C.
The Troop 119 scouts “adopted” the senior citizens at Somerby and work on projects with them throughout the year. The scouts attend Hoover, Oak Mountain, Spain Park and private schools.
Eagle Scout Andrew Tucker of the Brook Hills Scout Troop is in charge of the project and came up with the dog treat recipe after doing his own Internet research.
According to Sarah Thorne, independent living coordinator at Somerby, the project is a great intergenerational opportunity.
“It’s been neat seeing everyone get involved and having fun,” she said.