Student bake sale benefits animals displaced by LA fires
By Christina Gray
A 175-lb. African sulcata tortoise named “Tiptoe” who barely escaped with his life in January’s LA wildfires inspired St. Dunstan School kindergartners to help other animals affected by the tragedy.
Anna Marie Pacheco, the school’s longtime pre-K and kindergarten teacher told Catholic San Francisco that her students organized and promoted an after-school bake sale that raised $403.20 to benefit Pasadena Humane. The animal shelter serves the Los Angeles foothill communities consumed by the Eaton Fire, including nearby Altadena. It continues to be a critical lifeline for animals lost, injured or evacuated in the fires.
Pacheco said that she and her 24 students had been following Tiptoe and his young caretaker Caitlin Doran on social media before the tragedy struck. Millions of people follow the social media influencer who shares her adventures with the jumbo reptile in educational and entertaining video clips on Tic Toc, Instagram and Facebook.
Caitlan lured Tiptoe out of his enclosure in her parents’ Pacific Palisades home and escaped just before the fire closed in. Her parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles all lost their homes in the fire.
Tiptoe’s story shared on social media and television brought the plight of animals affected by the fires to the attention of Pacheco’s students, who were “very concerned,” she said.
“What do guys think we can do to help?” Pacheco asked. The school principal lets teachers and students choose their own outreach programs, she said.
The students decided on an after-school fundraiser bake sale to benefit Pasadena Humane.
“Their hearts were really into it,” said Pacheco. Students went to work making flyers and distributing them to classrooms. Families agreed to buy or bake at least a dozen bakery items to sell for $1. The $403.20 added up quickly. The sale was a hit.
Pacheco said the fundraiser was a lesson in compassion and caring for all of creation.
“The compassion part is huge,” she said. Animals don’t have a voice, she told her students. “So, if we don’t feed our animals before we go to school it’s like you going to school without a lunchbox.”
Tiptoe continues to inspire and teach others, according to Doran, who shared that her tortoise is a metaphor for all survivors of the destructive fires.
“Slow, steady and with a positive attitude,” she said. “Tiptoe carries everything he needs on his back, including his home. For many of us in the Palisades, it feels like we are doing the same thing.”
Photos: St. Dunstan Catholic School and
