Compassion. Creativity. And A Cat.

By Melissa Voynich, volunteer for Outreach and Development at the Lee County Humane Society. Reprinted by permission.

Meghan Rose Wilson grew up loving animals, and knew she wanted to adopt a shelter animal—maybe one that seemed to need a little extra love.

When Wilson visited Lee County Humane Society and met Tolkien the cat, the bond was instant. Tolkien had patchy hair and was very thin, but Wilson wanted to nurse Tolkien to health. And that she did.

A creative and compassionate person, Wilson had many talents.

Wilson was a student at Auburn University studying Industrial Design, and everything Wilson did included Tolkien as much as possible.

Wilson’s life was tragically cut short one year ago, but her impact lives on in a myriad of ways, including with our local animals.

We felt this day was good one to celebrate the impact of the Wilson family that will continue for years to come, as Wilson sought to make people smile and make the world a little bit better.

In October 2013, Wilson entered the “Groovystuff by Design: Connecting Education with Industry Challenge” involving the use of reclaimed materials to create designs that are sustainable, useful, and visually appealing.

Even though she had not designed furniture before, Wilson jumped at the opportunity to work with this company, and ended up placing first in the challenge with her Diverso Game Table.

I had a chance to look at some sketches of this excellent design that includes games like Checkers built in to the table, perfect when you want to play games without a mess.

Wilson’s design went into production by Groovystuff, the host of the challenge, and one year into production, this Auburn-student-designed table is number one in units sold, with a plan to expand the market soon.

Currently, the game table is sold through dealers, but Chris Bruning, President of Groovystuff, says that the company intends to publish the game table as an exclusive on one of their online dealer’s websites.

A special and unique memorial created by the Wilson family allows for a portion of proceeds from sale of the table to be donated to Lee County Humane Society as a memorial to Meghan Rose Wilson.

These monies will help other animals, like Tolkien, an LCHS alum. For more information about LCHS, click here.