Local kids help sick children with ‘Stuffy Love’
by LEN LEAR

Proud parents, Thomas and Elisa Spears, are seen with their compassionate kids bringing their Stuffys into St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children.

Children can do some pretty amazing things. In the September/October issue of Best Friends magazine is a story about a nine-year-old named Maisy (last name not given) from Sandy, Utah, who threw a birthday party for herself and invited everyone in her fourth grade class. But instead of asking the other children to bring gifts for her, the nine-year-old girl asked them all to bring doggie beds, cat toys, fuzzy animal blankets, catnip and other treats for dogs and cats to the birthday party.

After receiving the gifts, Maisy and her mom, Lisa, delivered them all to Best Friends, a huge no-kill shelter and rescue operation in Kanab, Utah, that cares for and finds homes for rescued, abandoned, neglected and abused animals. (For example, they nurtured back to health two dozen dogs that Michael Vick and his partners in crime had tortured.) According to the magazine, not only did Maisy’s idea result in gifts for many formerly homeless animals, but it also gave the parents of all of Maisy’s classmates an opportunity to talk about charity and why we should all help others in distress.

Sometimes it seems we’re constantly looking backwards. Take a look at popular television. There’s the retro-styled hit “Madmen,” a critically acclaimed TV series about cigarette-smoking, martini-swilling advertising men of the early ‘60s. There’s “American Idol,” a TV show dedicated to young would-be stars singing hits recorded before they were born, many of which are best left forgotten.

On a hot Thursday evening in July, the small meeting room at the Springfield Library was packed full of people, some even spilling out the door. They came together to discuss sustainability and were led by Katherine Lewis Sarsfield, 40, of Wyndmoor, founder of Sustainable Springfield.