PENNSYLVANIA, USA — In honor of the Berks County native Taylor Swift's birthday, which is on December 13, a nonprofit organization in Pennsylvania is proposing a challenge to get animals out of the shelters and donations coming in.
The SPCA is proposing the #TaylorSwiftChallenge to encourage animal lovers and fans of the artist to donate money or adopt at their local shelters.
The organization asks for $13 donations (unless you’re feeling $22) on Dec. 13 to be given to local shelters. Pennsylvania SPCA Director of Public Relations Gillian Kocher told Newswatch 16 that the idea was motivated by the recent TIME magazine cover that Swift and her cat Benjamin Button posed for, which honored her as TIME’s 2023 “Person of the Year."
“When we saw her TIME magazine cover featuring her rescue cat, Benjamin Button, we gasped because his adorable little face looks exactly like 92 cats our team rescued this year,” said Kocher. “It seems like too much of a coincidence not to do something to help not only our lifesaving mission but to support shelters nationwide.”
The organization is hoping that significant funds will be raised to support animal shelters and rescues nationwide. “Of course, we wanted to create a challenge that would benefit the animals in our care, but we wanted to do more than that – we wanted it to be an effort to support shelters everywhere. We thought Taylor would like that,” she added.
To donate, it’s easy, simply access the PSPCA website or donate to their Venmo @pspca.
Swift rescued her recently adopted cat Benjamin Button when producing her music video for the song “ME!” featured in the album Lover in 2019.
Kocher additionally told Newswatch 16 that they could see the challenge extending to other years. Their main focus is to continue raising funds to support their lifesaving mission.
A similar challenge in the past that made a difference for the organization was the “Betty White Challenge,” which asked people to donate $5 to their local animal shelter on January 17, which would have been the late actress and the animal activist’s 100 birthday.
