Two years of reading aloud to shelter animals

For more than two years, Nehemiah Turner has been going to an animal shelter in Jacksonville to read books aloud to the animals waiting there. He is eleven. He has now become the first child in the history of the shelter’s reading programme to reach one hundred volunteer hours.

The animals do not understand the words. That is rather the point — a steady human voice makes a frightened animal calmer and more likely to be adopted. It is a small kindness repeated until it adds up to something, which is how most real good gets done.

Reported by Sunny Skyz, 27 July 2026. Read the full story.