When most children celebrate their third birthday, they receive gifts of toys, books, games and so on – but that wasn't the case this year for one young local resident; Beau Sylvestre.
“We were talking back and forth about ideas. We didn't want a typical birthday, we wanted an experience, not just the average party where you walk away with too much stuff,” said Beau's mom Natasha Sylvestre.
As the little man hugs his stuffed cheetah, pretends to be a cat and even watches intently from the window as neighbours walk their dogs along the street – it's easy to see that he loves animals. So for his third birthday, Beau's parents decided to use their son's love of animals to teach him the life lesson of caring for others.
Instead of presents, at his party Beau collected $150 in donations for the Bonnyville and District SPCA, which he dropped off himself.
“He was there with animals and we told him that's what we were doing, we were giving them a gift to help the animals and he understood that,” said his father Pierre Sylvestre.
Beau and his parents live in Bonnyville with the newest member of their family Nemo, a little Beta fish. Not able to have any cats or dogs of their own, mom Natasha said this gave them an alternate way to help the animals and gave Beau an opportunity to be around his favourite animal: cats.
“He's a shy child but when he was first opening up and blossoming it was because of animals he had seen. I saw that he's got a love and joy that comes out when he's around animals we thought this was perfect.”
Beau's birthday donation will go towards the injured animal fund at the Bonnyville SPCA. The fund is set aside for animals in the shelter requiring special medical attention.
“This is the youngest little guy that we've had donate birthday money, it's just fantastic,” said shelter manager Heather Mutch. “I think it's a big thing that if we can get the younger generation to understand that animals are as important as people.”
Despite his young age, Natasha said she was surprised to see that everyone attending Beau's birthday party thought it was a great idea to give donations instead of presents.
Mutch expressed that both the animals and staff appreciate any kind of donations at the shelter and it means a lot to see families who care that the SPCA is in the community.
“It was fantastic seeing little Beau come in with his mom and dad. It means a lot to us when the parents and kids come in together to donate.”
While little Beau can't say much about the experience himself, by the excitement he gets when you ask him about his trip to see the animals it's easy to see he quite approved of his third birthday.
