A few years ago, Keith Webster visited his local shelter. There he found his best friend, a Jack Russell he named Nedley. “When I got him in the car for the very first time he crawled on my lap and he laid his head on my hand for the long trip on the road,” writes Keith in his winning Kibble Krusaders Kontest essay. “I feel so happy that when I went to the Humane society I got to look at two little eyes looking straight back at me.”

Keith, a 12-year-old from Alderton, Washington, found his beloved Nedley at the Humane Society for Tacoma & Pierce County, the largest shelter in the state, which, thanks to the sixth grader’s essay received $1,000 worth of Halo Dinner Party for their more than 100 dogs and 60 cats. “I was just writing,” says Keith, “from my heart.”

That was evident to Mimi Ausland, 13, the founder of freekibble.com who picked Keith’s essay out of almost 500 entries as one of the five winners. “You could tell it came from his heart,” says Mimi. “It was really genuine.” Click here to read Keith’s entire essay.

Marguerite Richmond, development director of the Tacoma Humane Society, agrees. “When I read his essay, it was so genuine,” she says, “and it reminded me how important animals are to kids.”

The homeless dogs and cats at the shelter certainly appreciate Keith’s thoughtful gift. “They seem to like (the treats) alot,” says Richmond. “Any little boost they can get is helpful, it’s a stressful environment in the shelter, and good nutrition is helpful when they are under stress.”

At home, Keith lives not only with Nedley, but a cat and a cockatiel. But Nedley is the center of his world. “I play with Ned every day of my life because I care about him so much,” he writes in his Krusaders essay. “Sometimes I spend all weekend just us together and as I type this I am holding him.”

Keith loves helping animals, and may one day become a veterinarian. “It feels pretty good to win,” he says. “Dogs need care and stuff.”

Ellen DeGeneres and Halo donated to 10-year-old Annabelle Held’s favorite charity – Our Pal’s Place animal shelter – in an inspiring spot on the Ellen Show.

Click here to see our first blog post about Annabelle.

Click over to our News page to see the clip.

“There are two types of people in the world, passive and active,” says Jessica Harris, head of adoptions at a Louisiana shelter, “passive who want to know what their community can do for them, and your active people wonder what they can do to better their community.”

Emma Foster, 13, is one of those active people.

Emma, a winner of Freekibble.com’s Kibble Krusaders Kontest, where kids were asked to write why their shelter was special, won $1,000 worth of Halo Dinner Party for Harris’s shelter, the St. Tammany Parish Humane Society in Covington. “I feel like I’ve actually done something that will contribute to the animals that people don’t usually think about,” says Emma, an eighth grader from Abita Springs. “I felt like a guardian angel when I got the email (that she won). They deserved some love, just like people do.”

In her essay to Freekibble.com founder Mimi Ausland, Emma writes of adopting her family dog Peppi — who she calls the “best dog we’ve had” — and how the shelter was inundated with pets following Hurricane Katrina, pets who still — after five years — need a loving home. “Most of the animals lost in Katrina were people’s pets, not strays… because of this, most of them were older, and are no longer wanted,” she writes. “STPHS does their hardest to make these pets feel like they are still loved, even if nobody wants them.” Click here to read Emma’s entire essay.

Emma herself has four dogs including Peppi, a chihuahua-papillon mix. “I don’t think he’s a dog, I think he’s a gremlin,” she says, laughing. “He is really cute.” She also has about seven cats, and plans on volunteering at the STPHS to earn service hours for school. Despite her love of animals, Emma plans on becoming a medical examiner, thanks to the hit TV show C.S.I.

Mimi received almost 500 Kibble Krusader entries, and picked Emma’s for its sincerity. “She put a personal note in there, that she got the best dog ever to her,” Mimi says. “You can tell that she took awhile to write it, and I love the hurricane Katrina part. This one stood out, it was a little more personal and I appreciated that.”

As does Harris. The STPHS has, on average, 100 dogs and 50 cats at a time. Harris says that the shelter pets “absolutely love” the Halo Dinner Party on their food, and she is sure they are grateful to Emma. “To write an essay to help their humane society goes above and beyond,” says Harris, “to put herself out there with the incentive to help the animals, not to help herself but to help the animals.”

by Mimi Ausland, Freekibble.com

Hello again! This is Mimi Ausland. I am the 13 year old girl who started the two websites freekibble.com and freekibblekat.com to help feed hungry dogs and cats at our local animal shelter. Boy did it take off! Every month we are now feeding 13 shelters across the country. Part of the reason we are able to feed so many hungry dogs and cats is because I was lucky enough to be on t.v. shows including Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey. Without them and all our very generous sponsors we would not have been able to generate the 1.8 million nutritious meals to homeless dogs and cats!

We are now starting to do some new things here at freekibble.com to raise even more food for homeless dogs and cats. One big thing we’re doing is an event called the Freekibble HI-5! On November 5th, we are donating 5 times the kibble (50 pieces), for each person that plays Bow-Wow Trivia. HALO Pets is sponsoring the event with no limit on the kibble! Our goal is to raise 5 million pieces of kibble on the 5th!

We want to get as many people as we can to go to the site – so we can raise a bunch of kibble! This is a HUGE opportunity to get more food to shelter pets. So, we would like to ask for your help in spreading the word. Please tell everyone you know to go to www.freekibble.com on Thursday, November 5th! You can also send the e-card (shown below). With your help, we can feed a lot of dogs – they all deserve to be fed a good meal!

My next goal for freekibble.com is to feed as many homeless animals as possible and help to get people inspired to do something good for the world.

Thank you so much!

MIMI

Best Friends Animal Society, the nation’s largest animal sanctuary, wrote about our 43,000 can donation of Halo Spot’s Stew in its newsletter. We’re grateful for the acknowledgement, but were especially thankful for the comments of John Garcia, BFAS DogTown Manager and star of the National Geographic TV show “Dog Town.”

The article explains that, “Best Friends understands the importance of proper nutrition and a balanced diet. That’s why we were so excited about the very generous donation from Halo.”

Then Garcia commented, “Not only do our dogs love Halo Spot’s Stew, the quality of which is absolutely amazing, they find the Liv-a-Littles treats to be so irresistible that we can get them to do just about anything. Liv-a-Littles have made our trainers’ lives a lot easier!”

Thanks so much for the kind words, Best Friends. Most of all, keep up the extraordinary work for animals in need!