Published: October 14, 2007 10:33 pm         

8-year-old receives pet food, trash bags for birthday

Second-grader makes decision to help animals at Terre Haute Humane Society

TERRE HAUTE — The animals at the Terre Haute Humane Society were not invited to Adam Bahus’ eighth birthday party last weekend, but they shared in his gifts.

Adam, a second-grader at Lost Creek Elementary School, told his friends not to bring gifts for him to his birthday party. Instead, Adam asked them to bring him presents he could donate to Terre Haute’s animal shelter.

“I just feel bad for them,” Adam said of the animals living at the Humane Society shelter. He hoped giving supplies and gifts to the animals would make them feel “more at home” while they are living at the shelter, he said.

Adam and his parents, Scott and Doreen Bahus, gave copies of the Humane Society’s “wish list” to Adam’s friends and classmates before his birthday party. Adam’s friends gave him pet food, newspapers, trash bags and many other animal supplies the shelter needs.

“It was his idea,” Doreen Bahus, Adam’s mom, said Friday as she helped carry supplies into the Humane Society facility on Fruitridge Avenue. “He loves animals. He wanted to make sure they had toys,” she said.

Adam’s 5-year-old brother, Zachary, and their cousin, Elijah Hann, 10, helped with the special delivery.

Doreen and her husband, Scott, both are from the Wabash Valley but lived in Chicago until about eight years ago, Doreen said. The family has a cat, but no other pets — at least not right now.

Adam has been an animal lover for a long time, said Scott Bahus. Whenever the family visits the Humane Shelter, Adam “wants to take [all of the animals] home,” he said.