During Friday night’s Richmond Raiders game while spectators cheer on their home team in the stands, one Richmond Senior High senior will rooting for the animals.

As part of her senior project, Amber Denny will be collecting dog and cat food, pet toys, newspapers, cleaning supplies, etc., to give to the Richmond County Humane Society. She’s been volunteering at the shelter as part of her project.

Denny said her project is actually about animal abuse and how the humane society treats animal abuse cases and how the animals are cared for.

Denny was inspired to do her project on animal cruelty because one day a stray dog wandered into her yard that had just been hit by a car.

Denny said she wants to go to school to become a veterinarian and hopes to eventually own her own shelter for abused and abandoned animals.

She said the hardest thing to see at the shelter was the furnace where the animals are cremated and the list of past animals that have been euthanized.

“It’s a lot of animals,” Denny said. “It’s really sad.”

Denny said she’s been surprised at the number of animals dropped off at the humane society and how many people will just drop off their animals outside of the shelter, without coming in to formally hand over their animals.

To help the shelter, Denny has already set up bins around the high school to donate items to the shelter.

She will have a booth set up during the game to collect the items.

n Staff writer Eren Tataragasi can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 19 at etataragasi@yourdailyjournal.com.