GROUP MEMBERS:

Matthew Gill
Jennifer Kern
Erin Nakasone
Kristen Swanson

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The goal of our social change project was to establish continuous relationships between the Whatcom Humane Society and other members within the community. The purpose of these relationships was to help the Humane Society fulfill items from their wish list. In order to meet our goal, we focused on items that we thought would normally be discarded by other organizations but could be used by the Humane Society. The main items that we focused on were newspapers, tennis balls, and towels. To make this project continuous we hoped to receive assistance from the Humane Society volunteers that are also associated with Western. We also wanted to help create awareness of the needs of this organization.

This project is important because it helps an organization that is ethically and socially responsible within the community. The Humane Society operates on a foundation with deontological views. Their statement of principle states, “the Whatcom Humane Society believes that animals, as sentient beings, have value beyond economic measurements and are entitled to legal, moral, and ethical consideration and protection.” They uphold the moral rule that animals are not merely the means to some other end. Within this project our actions are morally right, regardless of their consequences, because they support a universal truth.

Another ethical reason for choosing the Humane Society as our beneficiary organization is that it contributes to the sustainability of the ecosystem. They provide a shelter for unwanted and stray animals as well as provide affordable pet control services. Although we do not know the implications of overpopulation of these animals, we recognize that everything is interconnected. Any disturbance would create an imbalance that would ultimately affect the human race.

The success for this project did not meet all of our expectations. Although we could not establish a viable system for delivering newspapers and towels, we successfully set up a continuous supply of used tennis balls. These are being donated by the Bellingham Tennis Club. Our team also created an opportunity for the Humane Society to become a community partner of Western’s Service Learning Center. To create awareness, we designed a flyer that will be submitted to the organization to use at their discretion.

The inability to network the Humane Society with the Western volunteers proved to be our biggest downfall. Without this cohesion, it was nearly impossible to accomplish our desired goals of long-term benefits. By relying on the support of the community, we had little control over the success of this project. It was also difficult to coordinate such a broad endeavor, given our personal time limitations and the holiday season. The success that we experienced was due to the willingness to help from certain members of the community.

Our cost-benefit analysis reveals that the current returns of this project do not exceed its costs. This was mostly due to the non-monetary costs associated with it. For the amount of time and effort that our team put into this project, we only experienced minimal direct success. The potential future benefits that were established may soon surpass the current costs. From an ethical utilitarian view, the cost-benefit analysis does not prove that our project was beneficial. However if one is to look at whether our project has created the greatest good for the greatest number, we would consider it an ethical success.