Local Animal Rescue Volunteering
Andrew and I have been volunteering with Vicky's Pet Connection for a little over a year. In April 2005 we fostered our first dog for Vicky. Since then we've had 22 different foster dogs through VPC.
Over the course of our volunteering we've picked up various administrative tasks as well. Now we do a little bit of everything. I created a database for their mailing list. I print off labels and put them on newsletters whenever they go out. We've volunteered at adoption events numerous times and have done one-on-one adoptions for many of the dogs we've fostered. I've even helped out with approving dog applications. We also worked on redoing the adoption application.
In recent months we've been taking pictures of cats and dogs. I then put photos and a brief description on Petfinder. The more up to date Petfinder listings are the more likely animals are to get adopted. It's interesting seeing how easy or difficult is it to photograph a cat or a dog. Dogs that we've fostered are a lot easier to photograph because we're with them all of the time.
For the past two weeks I've also been keeping track of online things for Vicky and Nancy (Vicky is the primary dog person and Nancy takes care of the cats). Any online application submissions come to me. I've also been fielding questions received via email. We set up an old fax machine so that I can send applications to Vicky and Nancy. They don't have internet access at home so they rely on volunteers to keep that stuff running. The person who usually takes care of the online stuff is pretty busy this summer so I volunteered to help out.
It has been fun and interesting seeing various sides of running a rescue. There's definitely a lot of work involved and you have to be organized to keep everything running smoothly. Andrew and I have had some ideas to make things even more organized. Some of our ideas have even been put into action. We know that our volunteer work is appreciated by Vicky and Nancy. They're always commenting on how they don't know how they functioned without us. We certainly enjoy volunteering and helping out in any way that we can.
Over the course of our volunteering we've picked up various administrative tasks as well. Now we do a little bit of everything. I created a database for their mailing list. I print off labels and put them on newsletters whenever they go out. We've volunteered at adoption events numerous times and have done one-on-one adoptions for many of the dogs we've fostered. I've even helped out with approving dog applications. We also worked on redoing the adoption application.
In recent months we've been taking pictures of cats and dogs. I then put photos and a brief description on Petfinder. The more up to date Petfinder listings are the more likely animals are to get adopted. It's interesting seeing how easy or difficult is it to photograph a cat or a dog. Dogs that we've fostered are a lot easier to photograph because we're with them all of the time.
For the past two weeks I've also been keeping track of online things for Vicky and Nancy (Vicky is the primary dog person and Nancy takes care of the cats). Any online application submissions come to me. I've also been fielding questions received via email. We set up an old fax machine so that I can send applications to Vicky and Nancy. They don't have internet access at home so they rely on volunteers to keep that stuff running. The person who usually takes care of the online stuff is pretty busy this summer so I volunteered to help out.
It has been fun and interesting seeing various sides of running a rescue. There's definitely a lot of work involved and you have to be organized to keep everything running smoothly. Andrew and I have had some ideas to make things even more organized. Some of our ideas have even been put into action. We know that our volunteer work is appreciated by Vicky and Nancy. They're always commenting on how they don't know how they functioned without us. We certainly enjoy volunteering and helping out in any way that we can.
posted by Amanda at 8:18 AM
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