The Legacy 4-H Club donated more than 3,000 pounds of food, as well as blankets and toys, to the Cass County Animal Control and Shelter as one of its community service projects. (Leader photo/SCOTT NOVAK)

Christmas came early for the Cass County Animal Control and Shelter Saturday.

The Legacy 4-H delivered over approximately 3,000 pounds of cat and dog food along with blankets and toys to the facility.

The food was donated by WellPet of Mishawaka, Ind., while the blankets and toys came from Legacy’s Cloverbuds.

Just over a year old, Legacy 4-H has jumped in with both feet when it comes to community projects. Legacy 4-H was started in September 2011 and has already grown from 75 members and 30 project leaders to 102 members and 47 project leaders.

The club was started by Key Leaders Linda Bogue and Rachele Ward. Penny Knepple runs the Cloverbud program.

Among the projects Legacy 4-H has taken on in its first year include Christmas cards for military personnel, providing nonperishable food items for Helping Hands food pantry, adopted a county road through the Cass County Road Commission and have built bird feeders, which were taken to the Cass County Medical Care Facility and hung outside of patients’ windows.

Legacy 4-H will continue with the many of those projects this year, but when an opportunity presented itself to donate food to the animal shelter, the group jumped at the chance.

“My father-in-law is production manager at WellPet,” Ed Asmus said. “We contacted him and donated the food. They donate to other organizations and, since we are just north of them in Cass County, they were willing to donate here, too. Basically it’s one of our community service projects. The Cloverbuds started with the made blankets and toys and then said they wanted to ask people to buy some cat food and dog food.”

This past Monday, Legacy 4-H donated 200 to 300 items to the Farm Bureau 4-H Food Drive. The food is then distributed to all the food pantries in Cass County.

Mike Grice, director of the Animal Control Division of the Cass County Sheriff’s Office, was more than appreciative of the donation of 1,000 pounds of cat food and 2,000 pounds of dog food, plus the blankets and toys.

He explained to members of Legacy 4-H that the shelter has to purchase kitty litter, kitten and puppy food throughout the year, but depends heavily on donations like this one to keep the animals fed.

“We have an open house in December and we usually get about a four months supply of food donated,” he said.

This year’s open house is scheduled for Dec. 8.