If you are interested in helping your local animal shelter, you should consider volunteering. These organizations need a variety of different volunteers, and you can help out in a number of different ways. If cleaning up poop isn’t your cup of tea, there are often other ways that you can help out.
Work with the Animals
Most of these organizations are happy to have volunteers who want to work with the animals. This can include jobs like feeding the animals, cleaning up after them, walking the dogs, playing with the cats, and more. You might think it’s odd that they let you volunteer to play with the animals, but many of these organizations like to socialize the animals as much as possible so that they’ll have a better chance of getting adopted. Some organizations take in large animals, such as horses, and many of them are on the lookout for volunteers who know how to handle them.
Work at the Front Desk
Working with the animals is not the only option that you have. In many cases the shelter will have a front desk. The person or people who work there greet visitors, answer the phone, answer questions, help people fill out adoption applications, and perform other similar duties. In many cases, you can volunteer for this kind of work.
Work on Social Media
Some of these organizations will have social media pages, blogs, and newsletters. If you are good with this kind of thing, you can often volunteer to help out. Updating social media pages is not hard, but it is time-consuming, and many of these organizations do not have a large number of employees.
Work at a Fundraiser or Event
You can also work at fundraisers or events. When these organizations have events, they often need people to help set up and clean up. Sometimes they bring animals to the events and may need volunteers to help handle them. You might also be asked to hand out pamphlets, sell T-shirts, or serve food.
If you are interested in volunteering with your animal shelter, the best way to learn more about it is to call them and find out what they need.
