It's a Friday afternoon at about 4:30 p.m., the time when most kids are watching television or playing neighborhood pick-up games after a trying day of school. But in the Eller household, the coming weekend means one thing – time to bake up some dog biscuits.
As soon as their backpacks hit the floor, Milton brothers Zack and Thomas Eller, 12 and 8 respectively, get busy rolling out the dough for their homemade Woof 'Em Down dog biscuits. The boys sell the treats at local community events and online, then donate all the profits to pet rescue charities. In the past month, they've raised $700 for Aiding and A'petting, an Atlanta-based pet adoption group.
The Ellers, who are usually joined by volunteers Alex Makrides and Savannah Bailey, have got to make at least 40 individual biscuits for the coming weekend to fill their orders. That's not counting the thousands they're stockpiling for the upcoming "Hound-A-Ween" event Oct. 27 at Hipbone, an organic pet food store in Midtown Atlanta.
"They stay very busy," said their mother, Tracy Eller.
The boys' charitable streak started when Zack was only 6. For his birthday that year, he asked everyone to bring pet food in lieu of gifts. He then took the kibbles to the Humane Society in an effort to help the roughly 6 to 8 million homeless pets in U.S. shelters.
"It was like, 'Wow, that felt good,'" said Zack.
Thomas asked the same of his friends soon after – to date, they have donated more than 1,000 pounds of food.
"But our birthdays only come once a year," said Zack. "So we started making the dog biscuits and everyone liked them. They were like, 'Make more.'"
To make the treats, Tracy found a simple and healthy enough recipe online consisting of corn flour, peanut butter and applesauce. It was slow going at first, but after the requisite mishaps Zack and Thomas got the hang of cranking out the treats. Now they can yield 75 biscuits a batch. From start to finish the process takes about an hour.
"It took a looooong time [to work out the kinks]," said Thomas.
In the spring of 2007 the Ellers set up a Web site for the boys to sell the biscuits and the business has taken off from there.
Zack and Thomas said no one at school makes that much of a deal about their extra curricular activities. Sure, their friends know, but mostly it's teachers who are excited to hear about the charity work.
"[Our friends] never really go there," said Thomas.
When asked why they work so hard to help pets, the boys offer a simple and profound answer.
"Our mom always tells us to be part of the solution, not the problem," said Zack.
Labels: Charity, milton, School
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 2:44 PM
