AMARILLO, TEXAS -- Ashley Roe celebrated her thirteenth birthday by asking family and friends to donate bags of dog food instead of giving her gifts. In return Ashley collected four hundred and fifteen pounds of food for the Amarillo SPCA,” Ashley stated Instead of presents for my birthday party what we did is we had everyone bring a bag of dog or cat food. So, they definitely brought some.”

So what drove this young woman to participate in such a selfless act? "I've always wanted to become a vet and I love helping out animals and stuff like that so I thought that on the road to becoming a vet this would be a good start,” Ashley said.

Family members and friends supported Ashley’s dream and helped collect the food. Ashley’s mother and father were fairly shocked when they heard what their teenager wanted to do; however, they stood by her and helped her every step of the way. Ashley’s mother Debbie Roe said, "This is all her. She came up with this idea and we just embraced it and helped her out to get her where she wanted to be. So we are proud of her."

Shelter Manager, Kelly Mickey was surprised over Ashley’s efforts. "It's real cool what she did, I mean think about it. It's her birthday, her thirteenth birthday, she's just turning a teenager and instead of wanting presents for herself she got things for us and it's going to help all of the dogs and cats out here,” Mickey said.

Amarillo SPCA shelters hundreds of Animals providing food and water for pets waiting for a home. SPCA encourages donations to keep their organization going. This shelter is a non-kill organization so in order to continue providing shelter; operators are continuously looking for a good home for the pets. To find out more information, click here