Every End Brings a New Beginning

The summer breezed by in a blink of an eye, it seems. With the Fall semester beginning, HART has begun meeting again and some changes have been made within the organization.

To begin, HART would like to send Former President, Corey Bullerman, and Former Vice President, Megan Grigsby, a huge thank you for all they have done over the last two years. From helping out on the leadership team to becoming leaders - there is so much we have to thank you for. We wish you both the best of luck on your next adventures and hope to see you at a few meetings this year.

Former President, Corey Bullerman,
holding a cat he had met at his first
 HART meeting in 2015 and was reunited
with at the Hawgs and Dawgs farm last fall.

Former VP, Megan Grigsby, holding a cat at the end of the
semester celebration last fall. Megan, like Corey, has been with
HART since its beginnings in 2015. 

Our new President and Vice President are Emily Mullins and Ashley Frankart, respectfully. Both young ladies are excited for what this year has to bring and are already working hard to get HART more involved with the animal sanctuaries in the Athens area.

Left, President Emily Mullins, and right, VP Ashley
Frankart, introduce themselves to OU students at the
Involvement Fair on Sunday, Aug. 27th. HART
welcomes both young ladies to the leadership team!

Left: Emily talks to students as they come to HART's table.
Right: Ashley takes a moment to smile for a picture.

 Allison Cook and Drake Heth are continuing their roles as Secretary and Treasurer this year.

Unfortunately, HART had one more goodbye to say. About a week before school began, Dr. Samual Moss and his wife, Sandy, announced that they would no longer be at Ohio University and therefore would no longer be able to supervise and help HART. While this is very sad news for those of us who knew these two, we understand that life may take us places that we don't expect. So, HART wishes you both the best of luck and all the happiness in the world wherever life has taken you. We hope to stay in touch, especially because HART would not be here today without you. Thank you for helping create and get this organization on its feet. We can only hope that our future work will make you both proud.

A Throwback photo to one of HART's very first meetings. It is thanks to Dr. Moss and one of his classes that this group was made possible.
And it was Sandy who helped connect us to the places we visit and work with. Thank you, both, again!

As the title suggests, there are some wonderful beginnings happening in HART as well this year. To begin we have reprised our role with Union Ridge Wildlife Center and we are working on getting back in touch with Hawgs and Dawgs. We have also begun working with Bella Run, a horse and dog sanctuary. We look forward to volunteering and fundraising for all of these places. 

HART also made an appearance at the Involvement Fair at Ohio University on Sunday, August 27th. About 200 students showed interest in the organization, and roughly 25 joined us Monday, September 4th for our first meeting.

HART's information board stood tall and helped attract students at the Involvement Fair. 

After a student listened to what HART was all about and signed up, they received a special goody-bag that contained
additional information about the organization and some animal-themed snacks!

Emily and Ashley talked to students about what HART has to offer them, including volunteering with animals, learning
about animals and what we can do to help them and fundraising with animal sanctuaries around Athens.

Students signed up to join HART.

The first HART meeting of the 2017-2018 school year!!! The students learned about the three different groups we will be
working with this year and their questions about the group were answered.

Monty, a Ball python, was HART's special animal guest for this year's opening meeting. We learned that she
is indeed named after the movie, "Monty Python." She also is also the third generation in her line to be captive
born, so she was pretty tame and easy to interact with. 

Monty enjoyed cuddling some of our new members during the meeting.

Monty also got passed around to meet any HART members willing to hold her.  She seemed to enjoy being able to smell
everyone while they talked and took photos of her.

We have high hopes for this year, so be sure to stay tuned!