Do you love animals but your situation right now doesn’t make pet ownership a choice? Are you a student 13 or older in need of service hours and love animals? Would you like to make a difference in the lives of animals but don’t necessarily want to be tied down to full time pet ownership? Or do you love animals and would like to meet and hang out with people who share that love?
Santa Cruz Animal Shelter has many volunteer opportunities that range from helping in the office to helping out with the animals. And talk about making a difference. These are animals who are living under very stressful circumstances and are most likely lonely and scared. The contact with them might be the connection that gives them hope and brings them success in their forever home.
Do you love taking pictures? Working with the shelter to do “glamour photos” instead of the mug shots that are more commonly known with shelter animals may very well be the thing that catches the eye of their new family.
Maybe you are new to town or looking to meet new people. And you love animals. What better way to meet people who share your interests than to volunteer with them at the animal shelter? Think you might want to have a pet of your own but want to check it out first? What better way to do something to help and learn more about yourself at the same time?
Okay, so you are allergic to animals but you love them and want to help. There is a lot of administrative help that is needed. And if you are helping in the office, you are freeing others to be available to the animals. You might be that cheery voice who helps out with phones or the computer whiz who helps with the website.
Now that you are all excited about this, the good news is that it is easy to become a volunteer. Just check out the Santa Cruz Animal Shelter page at http://www.scanimalshelter.org/ to learn more and fill out the application.
The Santa Cruz SPCA also always needs volunteers: http://www.santacruzspca.org/
Another great way to help the animals: get involved with Annie’s Blankets http://anniesblankets.org/index.html
I volunteered as a foster parent for two seasons with the SC Animal Shelter. I fostered 22 kittens over that time and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had. I started because I was wanting to do some volunteer work in the community, and I really wanted to adopt, but my husband wasn’t there yet–this was a great compromise. I got to have kittens and he did not have the long term commitment of adopting, which he wasn’t ready for yet. He did finally came around and we adopted two of the kittens from our last litter of fosters. They are now 7 months old and we’ve known them since they were 3 weeks old. It’s been wonderful!