Did you know that Stephens students can foster pets while they live on campus (and earn scholarships)?
Here at Stephens, we love our pets! And through our one-of-a-kind fostering program, students can become a foster pet parent. We’ve teamed up with a local no-kill shelter to let you prepare a dog or cat for a “forever home.” The program includes training, health improvement and nurturing the pet back to an adoptable condition and may include scholarship opportunities.
“To me, fostering is important because it is quite literally a matter of life or death,” explained alum Amanda Kujiraoka. “Animal rescue right now is in crisis with too many unwanted animals and not nearly enough resources. Every single rescue in the US is begging for help. When I foster, I by no means think that I’m going to ‘save all the animals,’ but I can certainly save a few. And that’s worth it to me.”
Kujiraoka graduated from Stephens College in the spring of 2022 with a BS in biology and a minor in chemistry. She is currently a professional student at the University of Missouri, pursuing a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. She has been fostering since her freshman year at Stephens.
“I think most people would say that I dove in headfirst. I took in my first foster dog on the Saturday of orientation (so before classes even started). And it just snowballed from there," Amanda says. "I originally got involved with fostering for two reasons: 1) I knew I wanted to go to vet school, so fostering gave me an opportunity to get shadowing hours with the rescues vet for my vet school applications. 2) I’ve never lived without pets before, so when I moved to college at 17, just knowing that I would have pets around, made that transition a lot easier personally. To date, I’ve had exactly 60 fosters in just over 5 years, and I ended up adopting/foster-failing my cat, Kawhi, earlier this year.”
To learn more about Stephens' Pet Program, visit our website, or contact the Office of Student Experience.