Eleven-year-old sparks food drive

Mimi Ausland, 11, has a heart for a cause and a head for entrepreneurial thinking. Her cause is feeding the dogs at the Humane Society of Central Oregon (HSOC) shelter. Her thought: creating a Web site where visitors answer a dog trivia question. Each time the question is answered, 10 pieces of dog kibble are redirected into those pooch's food bowls. At the end of each month, Mimi takes a tally and delivers the kibble to the shelter.

As of April 20, over 115,000 pieces of kibble from http://www.freekibble.com had been earmarked. Mimi's father Kelly said he and Mimi did some figuring and predict she's on target to feed around 18 to 20 dogs per day. There are 40 dogs currently residing at the shelter.

Mimi has lofty goals regarding her project. She wants to see all of the HSOC dogs fed regularly and then spread out to the other shelters in the region. And she's not forgetting the cats, rabbits and other assorted critters spending time in shelters. They all need food, and Mimi would like to help them, too.

Her zeal for helping shelter animals began when she was very small. She would regularly send in a portion of her allowance and began volunteering at the shelter as soon as she was old enough. Mimi speaks with a confidence that belies her tender years, proof that passion for and commitment to a cause are ladder rungs on the way to large accomplishments.

She came up with the idea of distributing dog kibble after a visit to her uncle's house. She and her cousins were playing http://www.freerice.com, a vocabulary game in which correct answers result in rice kernel donations to the UN World Food Program. Mimi realized that if it could be done for people using rice, then the same principle could be used for donating kibble to dogs.

Mimi and her father secured some sponsors, got the Web site designed and launched on April 1. Bedouin of Sisters is one of the sponsors; before Mimi was born her parents lived in Sisters and made some firm friends here.

There is a new question each day on http://www.freekibble.com. A correct answer makes you feel smart, and an incorrect answer becomes a learning experience. Either way, the dogs win because kibble is donated regardless. Mimi researches the questions herself, sleuthing out dog trivia sites and using the questions found there.

Every day Mimi receives encouraging e-mails from people who are inspired by her action. The fact that she's just 11 years old is no barrier to her desire to make a difference.

"It's awesome to be able to feed the dogs and do something with computers so people everywhere can play," she said.