CITY FOCUS:

When Blake Lindzey came back to school this summer, he was looking for some way to do community service helping animals. So he started a club.

He never expected 78 kids to sign up for his Animal Shelter Services Club. And it looks as if his club has some momentum. Blake, 16, and some of his classmates volunteered at this weekend’s adoption fair at the Orange County Humane Society shelter on Newland Street.

The adoption invited members of the public to play games, find out about adopting animals and get information from booths.

But along with staff and adult volunteers helping to make the event run smoothly were plenty of Huntington Beach High School students like Blake, members of the club dedicated to making sure the shelter has all the help it can get.

The club’s meetings draw 15 to 30 people each week, and every weekend students help out at the shelter in force. After the club members negotiated a way to get parental permission to work at the shelter, they started cleaning cages, walking dogs, making personalized ads to help potential adopters know more about the animals, and whatever else they could think of.

“I don’t think we’ve had a weekend where there’s been less than seven or eight people there,” he said. “We’ve had weekends where there’s 15.”

The next big plan for the club is to start a fundraising campaign for the shelter, which is busy going through remodeling. Called “Change for Canines,” the program will put collection jars at businesses throughout the city.

“With the Christmas holidays coming up, hopefully people are going to be in a good mood to be charitable,” Blake said.

“Not one of the animals at the shelter’s mean. They’re all very kind, and we’re pretty much there to give them love or help them out.”