Michaela Oglesby is just 18, but she’s already spent six years volunteering for Honor Animal Rescue, where she’s in charge of the website and social media. She first shot the nonprofit’s dogs and cats when she needed subjects for a photography class. “I started taking photos for their website then, because they didn’t have any community outreach,” explains Michaela, a recent Lakewood Ranch High grad who’s now at the University of Florida studying—what else?—animal sciences. She spends hours each week providing design and content for the website (a task she can continue from Gainesville) and proudly notes that Honor now has 9,600 likes on its Facebook page. That’s a lot of puppy love.

Photography by Matthew Holler

This article appears in the September 2014 issue of Sarasota Magazine. Click here to subscribe. >>