So, think you could never
volunteer
at a shelter? Think again!
By Donna Deery
Guest Columnist
I could never volunteer at a
shelter. I always knew
that. Every time that I
adopted a new furever friend from one of those places I couldn’t wait
to get out of there. Shelters
smell. Shelters are depressing.
They are filled with the saddest humans and animals on the
planet. My heart would
break open and bleed all over the place, I would die on the spot if I
ever spent more than 15 minutes in one of those places, I was sure of
it. God bless those
wonderful people who could do it, but me? No way could I ever do anything remotely useful for any
shelter pet or the angels that helped to take care of them every day.
Then one day a little piece of paper
showed up in my mailbox. Unassuming,
un-stamped, just a little yellow piece of paper saying “Hello, I’m a
volunteer at the Somerset Regional Animal Shelter, do you have any of
the following items that our shelter needs that you would care to
donate?” and voila! I
didn’t know it at the time, but at that moment I became a volunteer
for SRAS, most probably for life.
It’s funny how things go
sometimes, isn’t it? As I
looked down that short little list, asking for very normal things like a
fan and old towels (and a couple of odd things too), it was hard to
imagine that this tiny piece of paper I was holding in my hands would
soon reveal to me the best laid plans (or, in my case, the convictions
of a lifetime) could and would be a thing of the past in just a few
short minutes. I looked
around my house and in my over-stuffed basement, even finding an old
working VCR that they had asked for on the list.
What the heck did a shelter need with a VCR, I grumbled, but
still, I dug it out and put it aside.
I didn’t need it anymore, that’s for sure.
They could have it.
I called up the local number of the
neighbor who had left that little yellow piece of paper.
No answer, so I left a short message on her answering machine.
“Hello, I have almost everything you have on your list, but I
don’t think I can get them all in my car to bring to the shelter, can
you pick them up?” (A
small lie, I probably could have stuffed everything in the car, but in
reality, I just didn’t want to go to that smelly, depressing place.)
I felt like asking about the VCR, but I didn’t want to get
involved that much to care.
An hour later my phone rang. “YES!” the woman on the other end bubbled
enthusiastically after she identified herself as the person who had
dropped off the little piece of paper that would forever change my life.
“I’ll send my husband down with his pickup truck any time that’s
convenient for you.” I looked at the phone in disbelief. Pickup truck? Geez,
I better find some more old towels and junk to make it look like I
really couldn’t have gotten this in my trunk.
True to his word, he was there before I had to go out, and
surprisingly, my ‘junk’ filled up most of the flatbed of his truck. Nice man, all smiles. I’m
not digressing, I just took note of it, figuring he probably never went
to the shelter either, he was too happy.
I knew he was just doing his wife a favor and picking up my stuff
for her.
Okay, that’s done, I
thought. I did my good deed for the year, I don’t have to think
about it anymore. And I
didn’t, for about three days till I again opened up my mailbox.
This time a little note (stamped and sent this time.)
“Thank you so much for your generosity!” the little note
said, along with lines like “we depend on the kindness of people such
as yourself to improve the quality of life for the pets in our care, to
make their stay with us as nice as possible until they find their
forever home.” Huh? Make their stay with us as nice as possible?
Forever home? Wasn’t this a shelter I had just sent all my junk… uh,
treasures, to? A shelter
where the poor pitiful animals sat in tiny cages all day and were
euthanized as soon as a new kitten or puppy arrived to take their place?
What’s this about a forever home?
Again I put it out of my mind, I
couldn’t think about it anymore (remember what I said about my
bleeding heart?) And I went
merrily on my way. Until I
went to that garage sale the next week.
Look at all those old towels in the
free box, I thought. Do I
still have that lady’s number? Would
she want them even though she has no idea where they came from?
I looked them over, they were in decent shape and didn’t smell.
In my car they went. And
so did a tiny floor fan I got for a few dollars.
Maybe they can use another one, I thought.
When I got home I found the lady of
the wish list’s phone number quickly, but I didn’t call right away.
Do I really want to start this up again? Do I really want another thank you letter to make me remember
that the animals in a shelter are on borrowed time and that I really
can’t make a bit of difference in their lives?
I looked at the contented faces of my pets (two cats and one dog,
all adopted from various shelters in the area) and I said, what the
heck, if a few towels and a dinky floor fan will help improve the
quality of life over there for even a day, how can I not?
I called the lady of the wish list and again got her machine.
This time I got up enough courage to ask her machine about the
VCR.
Again, she called back within the
hour, but this time my hands were full and I let my machine pick up.
“THANK YOU!,” she
again enthused. “Yes,
we’ll take any and all towels we can get.
And another fan? How
wonderful, now the pets in the sick room will get a few breezes too.
Oh, the VCR is used to play videos of birds and squirrels for the
cats in the sick room that don’t have a window, it gives them a bit of
distraction until they can be moved to the adoption room that has
windows overlooking some bird feeders.
We know it sounds silly, but it really does give them
enjoyment.”
VCRs to play videos for sick cats
that are waiting to be moved into the adoption room?
Didn’t all shelters put down animals that were sick?
I tried once again to not think about sick animals and smelly
shelters, but somehow this time I couldn’t do it.
I called the lady back, wanting more
information. “So, could
you use another VCR? I see
them all the time at garage sales, they’re only a few bucks.”
She said yes, there were other rooms in the shelter that could
use them (along with a small TV to go along with it) but didn’t want
me to spend my money on any of it.
“Well, do you have a receipt I can give to people so they can
donate it and take it off their taxes?”
Nope. That was
something their small organization had wanted to do, but just hadn’t
gotten around to doing in their few short months of being legally
allowed to do so.
“Okay, I’m pretty good on the
computer, if I make up a receipt and you get it approved by whoever
needs to approve it, would that work?
This way I can get you all the VCRs you will ever need without it
costing anybody a penny.” She
probably thought I was a nut, all she wanted was a few towels and a fan
and one VCR, but she agreed to present it to the FOSRAS board when I had
it done.
FOSRAS?
What’s a FOSRAS? I thought.
Who cares? I’ll do
this one thing and then be done with it.
I can get a VCR for the other rooms, and I’ll feel good about
doing it and then I’ll be done with it.
Well, I made the receipt, it was
approved, and off I went to a few more garage sales. Time passed.
The lady of the wish list kept asking me to come by the shelter
and see all the good that the VCRs, TVs and the fans and other items
that they needed and I had collected were doing.
Nope. I’m not
going into a depressing shelter, I told her.
And, besides, my sinuses will clog up and die in that stinky
place.
She laughed at me.
Imagine that, she had the nerve to laugh at me!
“Yeah, shelters can be stinky, for sure.
But that’s because people donate the inexpensive food with all
the fillers and dyes in it for the pets.
Cheap in, stink out. And
when you have over 80 cats at any given time, it can get pretty rank at
times. But we do our best
to clean the litter boxes immediately when they’re used.
So, it’s not really as bad as you think it is.”
Hmmm, is that why they put
“premium quality food” on that wish list?
I thought that was a bit odd at the time, but now I’m
understanding the reasoning. I caught the tail end of what she was saying next.
“And we are one of the few shelters around that welcome
volunteers any time we are open, they come to play with the cats, walk
the dogs. If you gave us a
look you’d realize we’re not a depressing shelter at all.”
I still wasn’t convinced.
Nope, I’ll do my garage sales and let you haul the stuff in.
Let me know what you need. I
ain’t going there, it’s too stinky and depressing for me.
A few months passed.
The lady of the wish list kept asking me to go to a FOSRAS
meeting (I had since found out it meant Friends of Somerset Regional
Animal Shelter – not the catchiest of nicknames, but what did I care?) I told her no, I wasn’t a volunteer, would never be a
volunteer, could never survive being a volunteer.
Again, she laughed at me.
“What do you think you’re doing? Bringing me all that loot from the garage sales every
week?” I gave her my best
evil eye. “Whatever it
is, I’m not a volunteer for an animal shelter!” I declared.
“I’m never going in there.
It’s stinky and depressing.”
She shrugged her shoulders, and I could see the faintest hint of
a smile. I tried not to
think about it.
Then one day she casually asked if
I’d help the shelter do a garage sale to benefit the pets.
I growled at her but said yes, all the while loudly exclaiming it
was a one-time deal, and she shouldn’t think that just because I’d
have to go to the shelter to do this, that she shouldn’t ever consider
me a volunteer, because that would never happen again.
I. Don’t. Do. Shelters. This
time she didn’t hide her smiles.
“Okay, you don’t do shelters.
I understand.”
Well, of course this story could go
on for another fifteen pages, detailing all the times I told her I would
never go into a shelter, that they were too depressing for a tender
heart (read wimp) such as myself. But
just as the best laid plans go, so did my hesitation.
I did walk into the shelter.
A few times during the garage sale, another time to update a
fading and falling apart bulletin board.
Another time to help staff do some laundry in the shelter office.
And I didn’t die.
I didn’t bleed all over the poor depressed employees and
animals because, you know why? There
weren’t any.
I saw cats and kittens batting
around toy mice in the adoption room.
I saw others doing their best stalking stance as they watched the
birds outside the window feeders. I
saw them wrestling with each other.
I saw solitary cats exuding ‘catitudes’ to all who cared to
glance at them. I saw others getting so high on catnip I swear I saw
Cheshire grins on some of them. I saw dogs hanging out on shelter
property, contentedly snoozing under trees while humans propped their
feet up reading a novel. I
saw stuffed animals being pounced on and played with.
I saw dogs on long leashes flying after balls in a spirited game
of catch with an employee. I
saw wagging tails. I saw
many things in those visits, but not one thing that was depressing or
ever made me stay awake at nights wondering about the fate of these poor
shelter animals. I soon
learned that SRAS kept every adoptable animal in its care till it found
its forever home… sometimes for years… and that almost all of them
were content, and even thrived, under the excellent care and love they
were shown by all who came to visit.
It did take forever for me to
acknowledge it, but slowly and surely I owned up to the title of
volunteer. Now, don’t get
me wrong, I’m not one of those selfless people that volunteer for the
cage-cleaning duties every weekend, nor am I a fixture at the shelter
most days. But I have been
known to show up when staff is shorthanded, and special adoption days
are too much fun to ignore, so I always try to be there then. I like to take pictures for the FOSRAS website, which they
tell me is also a way to volunteer (they are a little loose with that
volunteer title if you ask me.)
So, there you have it, my longwinded
tale of how I could never be a volunteer at a shelter because they’re
too depressing and stinky for words, but yet somehow am now considered
one.
And, shhhh, don’t tell anybody,
but I have cleaned out a stinky cage or two and didn’t die.
Go figure.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Donna
Deery is the webmaster of
FOSRAS.com (the Friends of Somerset
Regional Animal Shelter’s website).
She
now sits on the Board of Directors for its volunteers.
(And she's not the pretty blond woman in the photo
with the article)
(Click here if you
would like to see a real photo of the author.)
The
author of this article (me) would like to thank the Lady of the Wish
List, Benita M., for starting her on this most rewarding of personal
journeys. Had it not been for Benita's dedication to the animals
at Somerset Regional Animal Shelter I would never have known the
absolute joy one could get from doing the smallest of things for homeless
animals. Benita is a selfless and devoted animal lover, and it is
my honor to have been inducted into this very worthwhile endeavor
through the little yellow slip of paper she took upon herself to print
up and leave in my mailbox. Makes one realize how every event has
a ripple effect, some felt more than others. Just think, if we all
took the time to do just one little thing for a helpless person or pet
maybe there wouldn't be a need for shelters of any kind anymore...
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Click on the balloon photo below to see
a small follow-up article that ran in "Today In
Hunterdon" on August 11th, 2005 |
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