Aryana Noroozi and Alyssah Hall
The Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center (MSRPAC) in Riverside is a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to finding homeless dogs and cats loving homes. Prior to 2010, MSRPAC was formerly the Riverside Humane Society, established in 1897 to prevent cruelty to children and animals.
MSRPAC’s mission statement is to work to remove the suffering of unhoused cats and dogs by giving humane care to pets in transition, supporting pet overpopulation education, facilitating adoptions to good homes, and supporting sterilization of companion animals.
One of MSRPAC’s many programs is their Animal Kids Camp, a hands-on veterinary day camp for children who love animals and want to learn more about them. The camp is offered in the summer and during local winter and spring breaks for kids ages six to 13. This year’s session was held from June 9 to July 25, of which camp goers were allowed to come back throughout the weekly sessions.
Animal Kids Camp 2025 launched their “Future Vets, Saving Pets!” theme, where camp goers can explore animal care, behavior and rescue in a fun and interactive setting. This is a STEM-based animal camp for kids that combines humane education, veterinary science, and pet care through real-world experiences with animals, daily lessons and creative projects.
Humane educator Delaney Roberson has worked at MSRPAC for two years and leads all of their education programs. Throughout each week the camp invites different guest speakers. During the first week of camp, on July 10, they hosted guest speakers from Better K9 who taught the children how to walk and sit trained dogs. The camp also gives the aspiring little vets a chance to watch a spay or neuter surgery once every week for each new group of campers.
“I’ve always wanted to work with kids, but I’m also a huge animal lover. It’s perfect, it combines both of my passions. It’s awesome, you get to see the kids connect with the pets we have here. It’s also really cool when families come back in after camp and they adopt our pets here,” Roberson said.
“We have one girl this week. She’s done a few weeks of camp, but she’s adopted two kittens since starting camp earlier this year… This is a great program for kids that are already animal lovers, or kids that have an interest in working with animals. I think it helps them develop compassion and empathy and also just help[s] us as well,” Roberson shared.
One of the campgoers, Andelyn, said she loves the camp because it is veterinary focused and she wants to be an animal rehabilitator when she gets older.
“We watched a spay and neuter surgery, and I learned about recovery time and possible complications of all of that. We met with some therapy dogs and some reptiles yesterday and I got to learn about injuries of reptiles, recoveries… and then I got to learn about training processes of therapy dogs,” Andelyn shared.
When showing the kids the spay or neuter surgery, kids explore where MSRPAC’s veterinarian performs all of the surgeries. The kids are required to put on their scrubs, hairnet and mask, and stand alongside the table where they get to view it.
Another activity the camp shares with kids is the puppy playground outside, where the kids can take turns playing with a puppy to help it with socialization. Roberson shared that the amount of puppies the kids can socialize with at once, is usually two or three max because they cannot intermix a litter due to disease; this is done to ensure germs aren’t being spread. The camp follows a socialization order in which the kids must start with kittens, then cats, and then puppies which can only be one litter a day.
The program simplifies real veterinary concepts so kids can understand the science behind everyday care by showing them what goes into taking care of cats and dogs. When visiting the pets, Roberson talks to the campers about what goes inside of the animals’ kennels and what keeps them happy, physically and mentally healthy. They aim to teach the campers empathy through and beyond the animals.
“We are 80% owner-surrender, meaning people can’t take care of their pets anymore, and they relinquish them to us. We talk about the reasons why an owner might give up a pet, because some of the kids seem to think they’re bad people for leaving their pets here,” Roberson said.
Roberson also discusses with the children that the pets at the center spend a lot of their days inside kennels, unlike their pets at home. She teaches them about potential kennel stress or pent up energy the animals may have and emphasizes the importance of socializing time so that the animals can get some energy out.
“We go over a little bit of bias when it comes to dogs. We talk about stereotypes and how breeds also get stereotyped, like pit bulls. We have a lot of pit bulls here, and how they’re one of the sweetest, friendliest breeds, just trying to get the kids to kind of understand that, that we can’t put labels on anyone or any animal that we have here,” Roberson stated.
The camp creates opportunities for children to see themselves in avenues such as science, medicine, and animal advocacy by showing them different career possibilities. Kids can think about becoming adoption counselors, matching pets with families, and conducting behavioral assessments along with becoming veterinarians.
“We have guest speakers come out to camp, and they have all different sorts of jobs working with animals. We have better K9 here. They’re a training boarding facility, talking about the importance of training pets. We have other people that have therapy horses so they go to hospitals and care homes. So it’s really cool for them [the campers] to kind of see all the different jobs that they could do working with animals,” Roberson said.
