BOSTON (WHDH) - A 10-year-old girl from Peterborough, New Hampshire, has raised nearly $2,000 selling turtle-themed crafts to benefit the New England Aquarium’s sea turtle rescue program.
Heidi Bell will visit the aquarium’s marine animal hospital on Friday to visit some of the sea turtles that have benefitted from her hard work and dedication, including a 300-pound adult female loggerhead named Munchkin, officials said.
Over the last year, Bell is said to have spent many days creating sea turtle shopping bags, bracelets, and figurines. She sold them outside of a local shop in her mountainous hometown, nearly 100 miles from the ocean, and raised $1,800.
Bell, who is described as an animal lover and very caring, was inspired to raise money for the program when Sy Montgomery, an internationally bestselling nature writer, spoke at her school about endangered animals.
While Bell sold her products, she is said to have spoken passionately to customers about the challenges that sea turtles face in the oceans, from plastics pollution to entanglement and loss of habitat.
Since October, the aquarium’s marine animal hospital has admitted 430 endangered and threatened sea turtles suffering from hypothermia and other medical problems that have stranded on Cape Cod, according to officials.
Bell is slated to learn about how a sea turtle is slowly re-warmed over several days after a rescue. She will also see other medical procedures that are required to nurse a sea turtle back to health.
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