Throughout the year, the animal department has groups of people from different places that want to come volunteer their time with us for a few hours… kind of like community service. Often times these groups (usually anywhere from 6 to 20 people) are from various schools or colleges in the area. The group projects may consist of doing anything from mulching the farmyard to cleaning enrichment toys at the bear house. Our most recent group project was based around making enrichment items as opposed to cleaning them. We use paper mache balloons with some of our animals as a way to hide treats. After we put the treats in, the animals must roll the paper mache around or tear it open to the treat. This is our first time ever making paper mache traffic cones, so we’ll see how they turn out!