Woman encourages people to donate to help animals

Best Friends unwrapped a delightful gift of $500 and a very touching card from a visitor who raised it by doing the opposite -- wrapping things up.

Donations for the animals

Amy Allen works at Barnes & Noble in Las Vegas and volunteered to wrap people's gift purchases in exchange for any donation they wanted to make to the sanctuary. The bookstore donated the wrapping paper and let her use a table. Then she put out Best Friends brochures and went to work for four weeks straight. "People who already knew about Best Friends were always the biggest tippers!" she said.

Delivering gift in person

Amy and her husband, Brian, came to Best Friends to deliver the earnings in person. Brian said cheerfully it was a good thing they have a dog they adopted from Best Friends, or else he would've had no one to keep him company all those long nights Amy stayed after work to wrap gifts for the sanctuary.

Inspired to become a veterinarian

Amy said she decided to do it in part because Best Friends inspired her to go to vet school in the near future. She'd been struggling with whether she wanted to return to school as an adult, but said that when she first visited Best Friends, she felt that "everyone's level of commitment is above the bar" and that inspired her to make the commitment to vet school.

Double cat adoption!

And finally, just before they left the sanctuary, they adopted two cats, Mickey and Mouse.

Consider a donation to help the animals.