Tag: the pendulum

Ever Elon campaign launches Saturday

by Andie Diemer
Oct. 8, 2008

This Saturday marks the official launch of the Ever Elon Campaign, a comprehensive program that has been almost two years in the making and will focus on the school’s endowment and funding as well as providing funds for the completion of three buildings on campus.

At Tuesday’s College Coffee, a preview of the campaign was revealed to educate the community on how it can become involved and help shape the future of the university.

The program, which has been backed by Elon’s Board of Trustees, will work to continue building and creating new opportunities at Elon. These include getting more students to study abroad, awarding more research grants for student-faculty collaboration and constructing a larger Convocation Center that will be able to house everyone on campus.

rumleyChuck Davis, director of the Ever Elon Campaign, said the campaign’s endowment goal will be released Friday. Elon’s current endowment is about $82 million.

“Our campaign priorities for endowment are very much related to supporting students,” Davis said.

Whether this is through merit- or need-based aid scholarships or study abroad grants, Davis said this campaign will impact everyone, even if the direct funds are not going toward student activities.

“Supporting our faculty has a direct correlation on student experience in the classroom,” Davis said. “We’re trying to endow new professorships to ensure the experience for our students in the classroom is always cutting edge and top notch.”

While growing the endowment is the focus of the campaign, Ever Elon will also work to finish building Lindner Hall as well as create a multi-faith center adjacent to the church and a new athletics facility.

Gifts began being counted on June 1, 2006. From that time on a diverse committee, which encompassed students, faculty, staff and board members, worked to create the nuts and bolts of the campaign. Everything from how to “count” a gift to minimum donation amounts was tackled.

Current results of Elon’s endowment include buildings, such as Moseley, Koury Business Center, the Academic Village and Belk Library, and other amenities like scholarship programs. Donors can opt to specific what they would like their money put towards, such as athletics or abroad experiences.

“Thanks to the generous support of countless others before us, all of this has been a reality and has significantly impacted our Elon experience,” SGA Executive President Chase Rumley said.

Rumley said the visions to improve campus can materialize, but only through donations from the Elon community, including students, their families, faculty, staff and friends.

“This campaign is about every single person,” he said. “It’s about everybody chipping in and making a difference. Every gift from every student, regardless of size or designation, counts for the campaign.”

Click here for more information on Ever Elon.

Cause of student hospitalizations still unclear

by Andie Diemer
Oct. 8, 2008

After two students were hospitalized last weekend for internal bleeding, the Health Department said they still have not been able to find any conclusive origin or diagnosis of the illnesses, according to Assistant Vice President for Student Life Jana Lynn Patterson.

Patterson said after having a phone conference with the county and state officials Friday, there is still no consistent pattern of where the students ate either on or off campus or where they live.

The Health Department said there is no pattern of food-borne related illnesses, Patterson said. However, the Health Department and state lab are still conducting cultures taken from the students and the results were not available at press time.

After being released from the hospital Sept. 28, juniors Mike Milano and Dan Rickershauser have visited the doctor once. Milano is visiting for another checkup today and Rickershauser has a CAT scan planned a month from now.

Both said they are feeling healthy and recovered.

Patterson said the state official for communicable diseases said on Friday there was no need to alarm, since the baseline numbers for patients who presented had a broad range of similar gastrointestinal symptoms are around the same for this time from 2007-2008 and 2008-2009.

There were only 72 cases with the same symptoms during the same time period this year, which is only a one percent increase, Patterson said.

“[This] is not significant given the size of our residential population,” she said.

Currently, the Health Department is talking to about 20 students. Most of these were contacted through the Health Department’s own investigation and they did not receive medical treatment on campus.

While a student was hospitalized a few weeks ago for a positive strain of salmonella bacteria, the Health Department said there is no known connection between the instances. That student is now fully recovered, Patterson said.

“The Health Department has not indicated or recommended any changes in food procurement, handling, storage or preparation for ARAMARK,” Patterson said.

For precautionary measures, Physical Plant cleaned and sanitized a few areas on campus, where some of the sick students live on campus.

Patterson said she has talked about cleaning procedures to students that may have been sick and live off campus to ensure their health.

She said the county health department is no longer requiring the school to report all cases of similar symptoms to the Health Department for follow up, but that the administration will be taking a modified protocol for the next two weeks instead.

“Our protocol will be to report to the Health Department if a patient presents with symptoms that meet more stringent criteria,” she said. “We have been reporting all cases of the specified symptoms this week, regardless of severity.”

She said in the event that more severe symptoms appear the staff will forward a sample onto a lab for normal testing that that the Health Department will be notified so they can evaluate the sample as well.

Rivas provides tips for excelling in court reporting

by Andie Diemer
Oct. 6, 2008

The Burlington Times-News court reporter Keren Rivas talked to Janna Anderson’s Reporting for the Public Good class at Elon University on Oct. 6 about covering crimes, courts and government.

She spoke extensively about how to carefully handle covering these types of stories, since they are atypical from the standard news story and require an extra touch.

Watch what Rivas has to say about learning court jargon and dealing with lawyers who want nothing to do with the media.

Palin exceeds expectations, still succumbs to Biden, Elon convenience sample says

While Gov. Sarah Palin was able to connect with the American people, Sen. Joe Biden had more factual evidence and was able to come out on top during Thursday’s vice presidential debate, an Elon convenience sample said.

According to an unscientific poll conducted by an Elon University Reporting for the Public Good class Oct. 3 from 11 – 12 p.m., Democratic vice presidential candidate Biden prevailed over Republican vice presidential candidate Palin during the Oct. 2 debate held at the Washington University in St. Louis Athletic Complex.

The event, which was the first time the two met, marked the only debate the two candidates will have against each other before the Nov. 4 elections.

While 230 Elon faculty, staff and students were surveyed, 37 percent said Biden won while only 23 percent said Palin won. Twelve percent said it was a tie and 28 percent did not watch the debate or did not care to comment.

Elon University junior Mary Robinson said Palin clearly lost, even though she did better than expected.

“People had very low expectations for her and she surpassed them, but just because she used certain catch phrases doesn’t appeal to me,” Robinson said. “I don’t think Palin really showed that she was well informed on the questions she was asked. She made a rebuttal with information that turned out to be false in regards to the surge in Afghanistan and actually got the general’s name wrong.”

Elon University Senior Tim Graham said Palin hardly answered anything while hawking the necessity to talk “straight up” to the American people.

Ashley Flanagan, an Elon University junior, said each candidate won in his or her own way.

“I think that Palin had really low expectations and she did a good job, seeing that she had such low expectations,” Flanagan said. “But I think most people would probably say that Biden won based on his experiences and stuff, but I think Palin held it together.”

Elon University senior Katie Kuekes agreed, saying it was a close call.

“I think Joe Biden had some really good points and was able to back up his opinions with facts,” Kuekes said. “Palin’s factual evidence was not as strong, but her style was really appealing to some people.”

Junior Ashley Prilutski agreed, saying Palin didn’t come off as educated as Biden.

“I think she looked like an idiot because she didn’t answer most of the questions she was asked and just went off on her own and said what she wanted to say, not answering the question,” Prilutski said. “She also was not very eloquent and came off looking stupid — from my educated opinion — with all her ‘folksy’ sayings, aka comparing the economy to a soccer game. I understand why she did it, but I think the U.S. economy is a bit different than a soccer game.”

Gwen Ifill, a correspondent and moderator for nationally televised public broadcasting news programs, moderated the debate.

Elon University Senior Katie Kuekes said the debate was a close call, but in the end Biden had more factual evidence to support his opinion. Watch below to hear more.


Elon University Junior Ashley Flanagan said Palin performed much better than she thought she would, but that Biden brings more experience to the table and it was evident during the debate. Watch below to hear more.

Food-related illness sends two to hospital

by Andie Diemer
Sept. 29, 2008

For juniors Mike Milano and Dan Rickershauser, seeing their families during Elon’s annual family weekend wasn’t in the cards. But each was forced to reunite with their loved ones in a rigid scene: the hospital.
Both students were hospitalized last week with internal bleeding and released Sunday once they had recovered.

At press time the exact ailment had not be determined, but the students said their doctor, Robert Elliott, said he was 99 percent sure it was a food-borne illness, most likely food poisoning and bacteria-related.

“We had the same exact thing,” Milano said. “I had it a little bit worse, a little more progressed.”

Jana Lynn Patterson, assistant vice president of student life, said the administration was contacted Friday afternoon and told two students had been hospitalized, one on Wednesday and one on Friday.

“Given the severeness [sic] of the illness, they needed to survey our records to see if there was anything similar,” she said.

Patterson said Elon was also contacted by the health department to see if there was any connection.

“There is not any set pattern or anything,” Patterson said. “Any time you’re going to have that kind of connection, two students at one time in the hospital, then [the health department] feels like they’re going to need to follow through.”

While the health department consulted each student to determine a link between their cases, the only thing each had commonly eaten were a chicken sandwich and fries from Chick-fil-A Wednesday evening, Rickershauser said.

But he said the health department asked for every item consumed since Sept. 15, making it difficult to assist them.

Milano, who does not regularly dine on campus, said he still doesn’t know where it may have come from.
Since Sept. 23, seven people visited the health center with symptoms that could possibly mirror Milano and Rickershauser’s symptoms, Patterson said.

She said that it is not an atypical number and that none of the other cases were severe.

“There’s nothing right now where we’ve seen a bunch of people or any out of the ordinary numbers,” she said. “That may change.”

On Wednesday both Milano and Rickershauser started having stomach pains, among other symptoms such as vomiting.

Milano said the sharp, stabbing pains he experienced immediately denoted something was wrong. Thursday morning he skipped his morning class and visited the urgent care unit next to Alamance Regional Hospital.

From there he was immediately handed off to hospital specialists and was admitted into the hospital once the severity of his situation was recognized.

After visiting the Elon Health Center Thursday morning, Rickershauser was sent home with Dramamine, pepto bismol and instructions that should his situation worsen he needed to seek medical attention at the emergency room immediately.

He entered the ER later that evening and was treated for his symptoms but was then released. He wasn’t admitted to Alamance Regional until Friday after he met with a gastrointestinal specialist and was clearly not getting healthier.

Once both students were in the hospital, they were pumped with fluids, painkillers and antibiotics.

“I had internal bleeding,” Milano said. “My whole digestive track was bleeding out.”

Both patients underwent multiple tests including x-rays, CAT scans and blood cultures, among others.

“My chest x-ray showed that my colon and large intestine were inflamed and huge,” Rickershauser said.

He said he was told the diagnose is difficult to nail since the students were already being treated with antibiotics when he entered the hospital, which killed the bacteria.

Milano lost 13 pounds in 3 days since he wasn’t permitted to eat solid food and was fed items like ice cream and pudding.

“Anytime you have a student who’s sick we want the hospital to keep them a little longer because if they’re coming back to a dorm then they don’t get a lot of rest,” Patterson said. “I think everybody wants to be on the safe side about things.”

Both have checkups today and were told if they felt any pain before then to return to the ER since it could signal kidney failure.

Neither had experienced additional problems up until Tuesday.

Patterson said she spoke to each student on the phone Friday afternoon and that the Administrator on Call, Brian O’Shey, and University Physician Jim Hawkins visited the students Friday evening.

Elon Health Services also followed up with the other seven students that had similar symptoms to ensure they were healthy and collected additional information the Health Department may need, Patterson said.

None of the other seven cases investigated were serve enough to warrant hospitalization.

However, Patterson was notified Monday that another student was admitted this weekend for similar symptoms. It has been determined that they are not related to food consumption.

So far no changes by the administration, supervisors or health department have been made to ARMARK’s food service.

ARAMARK Resident District Manager Jeff Gazda said his employees work hard to ensure food safety on campus.

“Our top priority is to ensure that the food served at Elon is of the highest quality within the safest environment possible,” Gazda said. “We continuously train our managers and employees on proper techniques in food handling and food safety procedures.”

Patterson said in the case there would be a wide-spread issue similar to Milano and Rickershauser’s experience, Elon would work with the health department to notify the community.

Mysterious illness sends two students to hospital

Andie Diemer
Oct. 1, 2008

For juniors Mike Milano and Dan Rickershauser, seeing their families during Elon’s annual family weekend wasn’t in the cards. But each was forced to reunite with their loved ones in a rigid scene: the hospital.

Both students were hospitalized last week with internal bleeding and released Sunday once they had recovered.

At press time the exact ailment had not be determined, but the students said their doctor, Robert Elliott, said he was 99 percent sure it was a food-borne illness, most likely food poisoning and bacteria-related.

“We had the same exact thing,” Milano said. “I had it a little bit worse, a little more progressed.”

Jana Lynn Patterson, assistant vice president of student life, said the administration was contacted Friday afternoon and told two students had been hospitalized, one on Wednesday and one on Friday.

“Given the severeness [sic] of the illness, they needed to survey our records to see if there was anything similar,” she said.

pattersonPatterson said Elon was also contacted by the health department to see if there was any connection.

“There is not any set pattern or anything,” Patterson said. “Any time you’re going to have that kind of connection, two students at one time in the hospital, then [the health department] feels like they’re going to need to follow through.”

While the health department consulted each student to determine a link between their cases, the only thing each had commonly eaten were a chicken sandwich and fries from Chick-fil-A Wednesday evening, Rickershauser said.

But he said the health department asked for every item consumed since Sept. 15, making it difficult to assist them.

Milano, who does not regularly dine on campus, said he still doesn’t know where it may have come from.

Since Sept. 23, seven people visited the health center with symptoms that could possibly mirror Milano and Rickershauser’s symptoms, Patterson said.

She said that it is not an atypical number and that none of the other cases were severe.

“There’s nothing right now where we’ve seen a bunch of people or any out of the ordinary numbers,” she said. “That may change.”

On Wednesday both Milano and Rickershauser started having stomach pains, among other symptoms such as vomiting.
Milano said the sharp, stabbing pains he experienced immediately denoted something was wrong. Thursday morning he skipped his morning class and visited the urgent care unit next to Alamance Regional Hospital.

From there he was immediately handed off to hospital specialists and was admitted into the hospital once the severity of his situation was recognized.

After visiting the Elon Health Center Thursday morning, Rickershauser was sent home with Dramamine, pepto bismol and instructions that should his situation worsen he needed to seek medical attention at the emergency room immediately.

He entered the ER later that evening and was treated for his symptoms but was then released. He wasn’t admitted to Alamance Regional until Friday after he met with a gastrointestinal specialist and was clearly not getting healthier.

Once both students were in the hospital, they were pumped with fluids, painkillers and antibiotics.

“I had internal bleeding,” Milano said. “My whole digestive track was bleeding out.”

Both patients underwent multiple tests including x-rays, CAT scans and blood cultures, among others.

“My chest x-ray showed that my colon and large intestine were inflamed and huge,” Rickershauser said.

He said he was told the diagnose is difficult to nail since the students were already being treated with antibiotics when he entered the hospital, which killed the bacteria.

Milano lost 13 pounds in 3 days since he wasn’t permitted to eat solid food and was fed items like ice cream and pudding.

“Anytime you have a student who’s sick we want the hospital to keep them a little longer because if they’re coming back to a dorm then they don’t get a lot of rest,” Patterson said. “I think everybody wants to be on the safe side about things.”

Both have checkups today and were told if they felt any pain before then to return to the ER since it could signal kidney failure.
Neither had experienced additional problems up until Tuesday.

Patterson said she spoke to each student on the phone Friday afternoon and that the Administrator on Call, Brian O’Shey, and University Physician Jim Hawkins visited the students Friday evening.

Elon Health Services also followed up with the other seven students that had similar symptoms to ensure they were healthy and collected additional information the Health Department may need, Patterson said.

None of the other seven cases investigated were serve enough to warrant hospitalization.

However, Patterson was notified Monday that another student was admitted this weekend for similar symptoms. It has been determined that they are not related to food consumption.

So far no changes by the administration, supervisors or health department have been made to ARMARK’s food service.

ARAMARK Resident District Manager Jeff Gazda said his employees work hard to ensure food safety on campus.

“Our top priority is to ensure that the food served at Elon is of the highest quality within the safest environment possible,” Gazda said. “We continuously train our managers and employees on proper techniques in food handling and food safety procedures.”

Patterson said in the case there would be a wide-spread issue similar to Milano and Rickershauser’s experience, Elon would work with the health department to notify the community.

Man lying on tracks, killed by train east of campus

Graff's body was found at Park Road Extension and Hunter Avernue early Tuesday morning.
Graff’s body was found early Tuesday morning at Park Road Extension and Hunter Avenue.

by Andie Diemer
Sept. 30, 2008

A 21-year-old man lying on railroad tracks was struck and killed by a freight train early this morning. The university confirmed he was not an Elon student.

Ronald Alan Graff was lying on the railroad tracks and hit by a Norfolk Southern train traveling west at 2:16 a.m., according to the Times-News.

His body was found at Park Road Extension and Hunter Avenue.

The Times-News reported that the conductor saw someone lying on the tracks but could not halt the train in time.

Police did not release where he lived.

Officials are looking for any extenuating circumstances surrounding Graff’s death.

To report any information regarding this incident, call Burlington police at 229-3530.

Election campaigns full of surprises for news veteran Jonathan Alter

Jonathan Alter spoke with the staff of the student newspaper, The Pendulum, inbetween his question-and-answer session and speech at Elon University on Sept. 29.
Jonathan Alter spoke with the staff of the student newspaper, The Pendulum, inbetween his question-and-answer session and speech at Elon University on Sept. 29.

by Andie Diemer
Sept. 29, 2008

Jonathan Alter, a senior editor at Newsweek since 1991, spoke to the Elon community on Monday night about the election campaigns, the current status of the country and the issues the next president will face.

Students, faculty, staff and community members crowded into McCrary Theatre to hear Alter speak. While Alter was pleased with the turnout, he wasn’t surprised. He said he has seen large crowds and a similar interest and intensity at every venue he’s visited this year.

“People are taking this choice seriously,” he said.

Prior to his speech in McCrary, Alter sat down for an exclusive interview with The Pendulum. He shared his insights on the youth vote, last Friday’s debate, Sarah Palin and more. To read the full interview, go to http://www.elon.edu/pendulum.

Diemer: This is the seventh election you’ve covered for Newsweek. Has anything surprised you?
Alter: Everything is always surprising me. That’s what keeps it fun, is that every year there are big changes in American politics. I think particularly in this election year, we’ve seen a number of major changes. To give you a quick example, four years ago, hard as it is to believe, YouTube hadn’t even been invented yet. It didn’t start until 2005.

In the past, campaign finance was dominated by fat cats, big contributors. This year you have the Obama campaign — about half of their contributors are giving under $200 and large numbers under $100. They have about 2.5 million contributors, which just dwarfs anything we’ve seen in the past, so that’s very surprising.

D: Why are young people more interested in this election?
A: I think there are three reasons why they are turning out in greater numbers this year. First is how close the 2000 election was, when they were very young, and they remember that. The second is the aftermath of Katrina and 9/11 and the recognition that the stakes are very, very high for who the president should be. The third is the emergence of Barack Obama, who has a very unusual and particular appeal to younger voters.

D: Why are kids so drawn to Obama?
A: There is sort of a combination of a freshness and a coolness to Obama, a hipness that just intrigued young people from the minute they laid eyes on him.

D: You’ve mentioned a lot of differences between this campaign and past ones. Do you see any similarities?
A: I think the most significant one is it’s still very possible to get the campaign off of the major issues that will face the new president, distracted onto lipstick-on-a-pig-type issues that are really just campaign flaps or gaps or charges and countercharges of the day that don’t really have anything to do with the actual issues that the next president will face.

D: What messages have been put forward by each camp that have had a lasting, negative effect on the other side?
A: I think that the basic Obama message that John McCain is maybe a hero, but he’s out of touch for the 21st century, is a resonant message and a problem for John McCain. I think John McCain’s message that Barack Obama is not passionate enough about real people’s problems and maybe a little too inexperienced to handle certain international issues — that will continue to be a problem [for Obama]. I think a deeper problem for Obama is when McCain and Palin push these class buttons: ‘He’s not like you; he’s the other; he’s exotic; he doesn’t really come from the same place that you are.’ Some of that may be a little bit racial, but some of it is not racial. It’s just a depiction of him as having a different kind of experience.

D: On the topic of the debate, do you think there was a clear winner?
A: I think they both did quite well. I don’t think there was a clear winner. There was a clear loser, and the loser was Sarah Palin. The reason that she was the clear loser is that both McCain and Obama set a very high standard for knowledge and fluency about the issues. If she just goes into her debate this week with a lot of canned sound bites, a lot of attacks on Obama, and doesn’t show a command of the issues, she will be compared unfavorably both with Joe Biden and, more importantly, with Obama and McCain in terms of her readiness to be president.

D: Since Palin was picked, there has been a lot of information, negative information, that has surfaced. Do you think the McCain camp is rethinking its choice?
A: I don’t think they are — they put so many chips on Sarah Palin and they came up such a big winner at the Republican convention, that I think that they really believe their faith in her and her abilities, and that she has real talents, politically, and they will be validated by her performance.

Do they wish she had done better in the interview with Katie Couric? I’m sure they do, but I don’t think that they’re reassessing their decision to pick her and I think there’s zero chance of her being taken off the ticket.

D: What are the most important issues in this campaign? What does the next administration need to focus on?
A: In many ways, there’s only one issue, I believe, for the next president. The reason there’s only one issue is that almost every other really important issue flows out of that one issue. That one issue is restoring America’s global leadership, restoring America’s prestige in the world.

On the range of really big international problems, whether it’s dealing with a nuclear Iran, winding down the war in Iraq, dealing with North Korea, dealing with climate change, with terrorism, with AIDS — these are all international problems. If we don’t restore America’s leadership, we will not be able to address those problems. So, to me the preeminent question is which of these two men can move most effectively to reestablish our leadership.

D: Who do you think is going to come out on top?
A: I honestly think it could still go either way, and I’ve been saying for the last several weeks that it was 50/50. I would now put it at about a 55/45 edge for Barack Obama, but that still gives McCain a very, very good chance to win this election. While I would maybe bet $5 on Obama, I wouldn’t bet $10.

Whitney Bossie contributed to this article.

Watch to hear Alter’s tips to make it big in the news industry:

House says ‘no’ to $700 billion bailout, Dow posts record losses

Graphic courtesy of MCT Campus.
Graphic courtesy of MCT Campus.

by Andie Diemer
Sept. 29, 2008

The House of Representatives rejected the proposed $700 billion plan to bail out the U.S. economy late Monday afternoon. The emergency rescue package, which aimed to buy bad mortgages to help stabilize the economy, failed by 23 votes, sending the Wall Street Stock Exchange plummeting before the vote was even complete.

The bill, which lost 228 to 205, would have been the Treasury Department’s biggest intervention since the Great Depression. The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 777 points, the biggest closing point drop in history.

About 60 percent of Democrats backed the bill while only about a third of Republicans supported it.

Jim Barbour, associate professor of economics at Elon University, said this is a situation where action needs to be taken.

“There is going to have to be some sort of intervention take place here,” Barbour said. “There’s lot of ways this could be accomplished and this bill is only one of them.”

The plan would have allowed the government to spend up to $700 billion to rescue banks and other weakening firms of assets, backed by home mortgages that are foreclosing at a record rate.

“This is a bill that is basically bailing out those people that have undertaken risky investments and those investments have not paid off and they are looking at great loss,” he said. “They are looking at assistance from the government to protect their fortunes.”

Because a bank can never be assured they are going be repaid for any loan, the situation only escalated when the banks don’t trust each other, he said.

“Unfortunately, these top-flight financial institutions are now risky loans in themselves,” Barbour said.
President Bush addressed the public before the debate began, urging lawmakers to support the plan even through resistance from taxpayers and voters.

Bush said the vote was necessary to protect the economy and in an attempt to negate claims that the bill would only benefit Wall Street’s top firms, Bush said “A vote for this bill is a vote to prevent economic damage to you and your community,” according to the Washington Post.

Barbour blames the complications on American’s unhealthy relationship with credit, weather on a personal or national level.

He said a substitute bill has probably already been created and will be put forward soon.

“I don’t like the idea that we’re in this situation, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are,” Barbour said.
This can trickle down to local communities, where people may no longer be able to get a much simpler loan for items such as automobiles.

“This affects everything that you do that involves borrowed money,” he said. “Which includes everything from running your credit card to buy a coffee to borrowing the money to buy a house when you graduate and everywhere in between.”

Caroline Fox also contributed to this article.

Free kittens look for new parents outside popular coffee shop

by Andie Diemer
Sept. 29, 2008

Burlington resident Dave Fitzgerald and his children, Anya, 3, and Thomas, 6, squatted outside Acorn Coffee Shop in downtown Elon today offering free kittens to the community.

Their mother cat had five kitten seven weeks ago.

Junior Sydney Little spotted the kittens, adopted one and left to pick up cat litter to give her new pet a home.

Watch to see what Thomas has to say about the kittens: