Imperial Student Receives peta2 Award for Stopping Cruel Donkey Basketball Game

Student’s Campaign Persuades School to Switch to Humane, Animal-Free Fundraiser

For Immediate Release:
April 6, 2015

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Courtesy of peta2, PETA’s youth division, a Hero to Animals Award is on its way to 16-year-old Windsor High School junior Bailey Northstine, who took school administrators to task for a planned donkey basketball game—a cruel event that subjects sensitive animals to rough handling, including being pulled, shoved, and kicked. Bailey created and passed out posters exposing the cruelty inherent in donkey basketball games to students, and the outcry led the school to drop its original plan in favor of a student-faculty basketball competition—featuring only willing human participants. Bailey’s story is featured on peta2’s website, available here.

“Bailey’s determination to spare animals the confusion and pain they’d experience in a crowded gymnasium has put her school on the map as one of many across the country to take a stand against cruelty to animals,” says peta2 Director Marta Holmberg. “peta2 is ready to help students everywhere take a page from Bailey’s book and encourage their schools to drop plans for donkey basketball games.”

Even though experts agree that the animals are only able to bear little more than 100 pounds, these donkeys are typically forced to carry full-grown adults. In addition to the violence inherent in donkey basketball games, they also pose a risk to human participants. peta2—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—works with students across the country to implement cruelty-free events and fundraisers at their schools.

For more information, please visit peta2.com.