‘My seven-year-old self would be proud’: Ontario teen opens dog rescue after 10 years of fundraising

At just seven years old, Kash Weinber began selling handmade wooden creations to raise money for animals in his community. 

Now, a decade later, the Quinte West teen is preparing to break ground on a rescue of his own.

Weinber, 17, is behind Rose Hill Rescue & Resort, a planned nonprofit dog rescue and cage-free daycare located off Hamilton Road between Belleville and Trenton.

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“Pretty much all my life, I’ve always had a passion for animals,” Weinber told Now Toronto. “When I was seven, I wanted to figure out a way to actually help animals and change the world a little bit.”

That passion led him to launch Kash’s Kreations, which originally sold handmade items such as wooden robots and planters. 

Half of the profits were donated to animal rescues around Quinte West, while the remainder was saved toward his dream of eventually opening his own facility.

Over the years, Weinber has donated more than $40,000 to rescue organizations. 

His work later expanded from woodworking into pet sitting and dog walking, allowing him to continue saving for the project.

“I always had the dream of it, but I never realized that everything would kind of turn out so successful so fast,” he said. “It’s kind of mind-blowing that I’m breaking ground in a couple weeks here to actually start building the rescue. I didn’t think it would come this early in my life, but I’ve definitely always had the dream of it.”

Weinber said the project began to feel possible about a year ago, when he found a piece of land at a price he could manage and received encouragement from supporters to pursue the idea.

Rose Hill Rescue & Resort will combine a nonprofit rescue with a dog daycare. 

Proceeds from the daycare will help cover the rescue’s operating expenses, including food, medical care and shelter for dogs waiting to be adopted.

The planned 440-square-foot building will sit alongside 40 acres of land and include a large fenced yard where the dogs can spend time outdoors. 

Rather than keeping the animals in traditional kennels, Weinber wants to create a comfortable, cage-free setting with full rooms.

“It’s gonna be a very homey environment, cage-free, so that they’re not caged up and things like that,” he said.

The facility will also include a washing station, allowing staff to clean dogs on-site without taking them into an unfamiliar environment.

“We’re gonna have a washing station in there, so we don’t have to take them to the groomers and get them all stressed out and stuff like that,” Weinber explained.

The rescue will initially focus exclusively on dogs, although Weinber is open to caring for other animals if the organization expands in the future. 

He expects construction to begin within approximately one month, but fundraising remains the project’s greatest hurdle.

“Just getting all the funds to fund the rescue completely has been probably the biggest challenge so far,” he said.

Building a business while completing school has also required careful balancing. 

Weinber was homeschooled for several years during middle school, which gave him more time to develop Kash’s Kreations. 

He later returned to high school and treated the business like a job he managed outside the classroom.

He now has one year of high school remaining.

Weinber credits much of his progress to his parents, who have supported his work from the beginning.

“I give full credit to my parents for that,” he said. 

“They have shaped me into the person that I am, and I don’t know where I’d be without them.”

His journey has not always been met with the same encouragement. Weinber recalled facing judgment from some of his peers when he first began fundraising, but said attitudes changed as he grew older and the project became more established.

“Middle school’s hard, so there’s always gonna be the kid that bats an eye at you for doing something good. You’re never gonna escape that,” he said. 

“But I always had good friends to support me all throughout that.”

Today, he says his friends, teachers and members of the wider community have rallied behind his plans.

Along with running the rescue, Weinber hopes to become a firefighter after graduating. He plans to complete the necessary courses while continuing to operate Rose Hill with help from his family. For him, the two paths share a common goal: helping his community.

“Having the rescue on the side of that is gonna help keep me a little bit financially stable so that I can firefight and can also help dogs at the same time,” he said. “So I’m kind of helping both sides of the community, the animals and the people.”

Weinber already has plenty of experience caring for rescues at home. His family has three rescue dogs and two rescue cats, including Lola, a boxer-Lab mix; Jet, a shepherd mix; and Max, Weinber’s Chihuahua.

Five years from now, Weinber hopes Rose Hill will be a thriving rescue with a steady flow of people coming through its doors. Most importantly, he wants to help as many dogs as possible.

For other young people who may feel too young to pursue an ambitious idea, Weinber’s advice is this:

“Just stick with it, and it’ll pay off in the end for sure,” he said. 

“I’ve always had this passion, but in the business sense, there’s always been doubts. I don’t know if this is going to be successful. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to achieve my dream, but I always stuck with it, and I kept pushing, and it definitely did pay off and work out in the end.”

As Weinber prepares to transform his childhood goal into a physical rescue, he believes his seven-year-old self would be proud.

“I’ve always loved animals, but I never thought that my life was going to be working with them in the end,” he said.