South Optimist recently interviewed PAWS member Krista Konerman about the animal advocacy club here at South.

Can you tell me a little bit about what the club is?

“PAWS stands for Panther Animal Welfare Society and as a club we try to have events such as the Panther Plus that happened today. We try to have these events be animal related so for example in the winter we had a towel and blanket drive for the animal shelter, we have made cat nip toys to donate, and we have had therapy dogs come in and have an information session about therapy dogs and what they do.”

What was the Panther Plus about?

“For Panther Plus today we had somebody who fosters animals come in to talk about what fostering is and how other people can get involved. Ann Kamman today taught about fostering and brought in the five kittens she is currently fostering.”

So what is fostering?

“Fostering is basically when the animals are super young, they grow up in a home with a foster family so that they can develop and grow in a stress free environment that the shelter can sometimes not be. You can foster all types of animals and sometimes older animals need foster homes as well, and also animals that have special needs. All of these animals get foster homes so they can be trained and be in a good environment until they get adopted.”