Eastern Iowa girl uses soap making to help Monticello animal shelter

Animal shelters throughout the state rely on donations to keep their doors and kennels open.

The Animal Welfare Friends Shelter in Monticello is celebrating three years of saving local animals. It's an effort that isn't cheap.

"We have no annual funding sources, it operates primarily on donations," said Cindy Bagge with the shelter. "We have to work really hard to do that to keep a shelter this size in volume floating."

So 9-year-old Bella Frasher, of Cascade, wanted to help. Bella says she's always been an animal lover.

"Her love for animals keeps growing. If she had it her way we'd have 20 cats and 20 dogs," said Bella's mom Mandi.

It all started after Bella and Mandi spent time volunteering at the shelter.

"After we were done volunteering one Saturday morning, she was worried about them not having enough toys, enough treats, and beds, so that's how we came up with the idea," Mandi said.

The idea: to sell their homemade goat milk soap with all of the proceeds benefiting Animal Welfare. The Frasher's already used their homemade soap and had success selling the suds for school fundraisers.

"We keep the ingredients pretty simple and as natural as possible, we actually started it because her skin is super sensitive," Mandi said. "So that's what got us started making them for ourselves and then it was her idea to start making them to raise money."

The soap making process is a family affair, but Bella takes the lead.

Bella and her family say they have no plans of stopping.

"As long as people want them, we'll keep making them..Anything to do with animals, I think that's a big driving force that keeps her going in the day."

And if you want to learn more about Bella Boo Soaps or support her cause, you can email bellaboosoap@gmail.com.