Chase Westbrook stands with the biggest donation yet to the Sampson County Animal Shelter during his third annual event ‘Chase’s Animal Help.’ Westbrook started the event for no other reason than having a simple love for animals.
                                 Courtesy Photo

Chase Westbrook stands with the biggest donation yet to the Sampson County Animal Shelter during his third annual event ‘Chase’s Animal Help.’ Westbrook started the event for no other reason than having a simple love for animals.

Courtesy Photo

A recent mission of Chase Westbrook revealed himself to be a young unsung hero whose compassion and heart for animals is way bigger than what can fit inside his tiny body.

Westbrook, who just turned 10, recently held his third annual donation event to the Sampson County Animal Shelter,titled “Chase’s Animal Help.” For it, he collected various items for the shelter. Cat and dog food, blankets, bowls, pee pads and much more were collected and donated, for no other reason than his simple love of animals.

As for what made him want to start doing the donation event in the first place, his mother, Nicole Westbrook, shared the backstory.

“When Chase was still seven and turning eight, he came up to me and told me that he wanted to get stuff for the animal shelter for his birthday,” Westbrook said. “Naturally, of course, you cannot tell a child ‘no’ who wants to do something good like that.”

”So we started our first year for his eighth birthday,” she said. “He was at Midway Elementary at the time, so we collected there and maybe had a front seat’s worth of stuff.”

That one collection was all it took for him to fall in love with the idea and he’s been eagerly growing the event each year since.

“When we first delivered the donations, he thought that was the greatest thing in the world,” Westbrook said. “So then, probably about December of that year, instead of asking about Christmas time, he was asking was it getting close enough to his birthday to do the animal shelter again.”

“He’s asked the same question around the same time each year since then,” she added with a laugh. ” So yes, we’re gonna keep doing it until we can’t do it anymore.”

Young Chase now attends Brookside Christan Academy in Dunn, where he’s continued “Chase’s Animal Help.” His 10th birthday was on Feb. 26, marking the event’s third annual edition and his mom said this haul was their biggest yet.

“We didn’t raise much money, but what we did get we use it to get supplies,” she said. “I know the first year we did it, we held a GoFundMe on Facebook and he raised about $200 and we had maybe 50 items.”

“This year, though, I know we had well over 200-plus items,” Westbrook said. “We were even able to get gloves, some hand soap and other things for the workers — we got everything you can think of. If we did have any money or change left over, we would just go to like PetSmart or Food Lion and pick up more items for them.”

When speaking on her son’s selfless act, Westbrrok said she couldn’t be more proud.

“Oh, it makes me and his dad Greg very proud,” she said. “When he came up to us with it, it was great and you really just can’t tell him no for wanting to help others.”

As for what the future of “Chase’s Animal Help” looks like, Westbrook says they’re already planning next year’s event.

“We plan on doing it again next February and we actually collect all year round,” she said. “We’ve actually got a few more items since so we might be making another trip. He just really loves animals and wants to do whatever he can to help them. His hope is to make this bigger each year for the Sampson County Animal Shelter and we’ll continue to support him anyway we can to help that happen.”

To help out “Chase’s Animal Help” with a donation, Westbrook said people can reach out to her Facebook page or email her at [email protected]. She also said they’ve made a Facebook for “Chase’s Animal Help” for people to find help.

Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.