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Originally Posted by carnation
Is anyone else involved in animal rescue? 
We've been involved heavily over the years. It's satisfying, although I could do without the rat, mouse, and 2 box turtles that my kids have rescued in the past year.
One of my daughters is trying to think of a meaningful Gold Award project involving animal rescue, so any suggestions would be welcome! |
Yay for this thread! I've been involved with animal rescue since I was 13. I started off volunteering at the local SPCA and was hired a year later, then worked as an employee weekends and summers until I went to college. It was a small shelter (only 6-7 employees, but TONS of animals brought in every day) so I did everything - from cleaning cages and scooping poop to training volunteers, temperament testing dogs, doing medical procedures and performing adoptions. I loved it! I also volunteered at two wildlife rescues during high school, feeding baby animals and sometimes assisting with bigger ones. I got to feed the owls by (heavily gloved) hand a few times, which was awesome... and maybe some indication of my future affiliation?
I did some more volunteering in Baltimore shelters in college but between classes and extracurriculars it was hard to get heavily involved.
How old is your daughter? Most shelters don't allow children under 13 or 14 to volunteer unless they have a parent with them, but that can be kind of a fun mom-daughter experience to do it together. If she's older she should definitely try volunteering if she hasn't already. I can't really tell from your post if they've been rescuing animals on their own or as part of an organized group, but getting involved with a group that has the funding and resources to get a lot done is a great experience. In terms of a project, here are a few thoughts...
- Bringing more animals into your house may be the last thing you want, but if it's not, fostering for a shelter can be a lot of fun. I fostered all through high school and part of college. For those who aren't familiar, it's bringing animals who can't stay in the shelter to stay with you until they can be adopted. The shelter usually takes care of any additional expenses (food, medical, or otherwise). Sometimes these are animals with behavioral or medical issues, but the easiest to do with kids would be animals with underage litters. Taking on a cat with young kittens and raising them to adoptable age (usually 8 weeks and 2+ pounds in weight) is really rewarding. Your family could also work to find adopters for the kittens to save the shelter some work (though they would ultimately go through the shelter, not you). The big hazard, though, is making sure your kids don't get too attached to give them back when it's time for them to ge adopted...
- Shelters often post a wish list on their website of items they need. Some are one-time (like a new computer) and some are recurring (like bleach, towels for bedding, etc.). Maybe your daughter could do a drive at her school/church/what-have-you to collect some of these items, or do a fundraiser to purchase them.
- Along the same lines, she may be able to ask local businesses if they have any of those things they could donate. Check with the shelter first, but a lot of things that get thrown away could be useful. For example, she could get cardboard boxes to make "cat forts" for enrichment, or get shredded papers from confidential records to use for bunny/guinea pig/rat cage lining. That's something my shelter used to do but every group does it differently.
- She could start a volunteering group at her school - getting a group of kids that could go to a local shelter once a week or so to do whatever is needed. She would need to talk to the shelter re: age restrictions and what kind of help they need, as well as how many kids could come and when. They might also need to go through a volunteer orientation.
- She could do a variation of the second suggestion for shelters or spay/neuter clinics outside of the country. There are a lot of groups in Central/South America and the carribbean that need help and supplies. A college friend of mine put together an alternative spring break trip for about 10 people to travel to a shelter in the carribbean to rebuild part of their building.
- This might be getting in over her head, but a lot of groups outside the contintental US (or in more rural parts of the US) look for people from the states to adopt the pets they have. I adopted my dog from Puerto Rico, which was actually very easy - since it's part of the US there was no customs or holding period. The shelter I adopted from, called El Faro de los Animales, has a ton of animals that would be very adoptable in the states but just don't get adopted there. Again, this might be too much to take on, but she could see if there was any way to work with a group like that to get more interest in adopting in her community. If she did do that, she would have to be prepared for potential backlash from local groups - some people get upset about adopting animals from far away when there are so many in need locally.
Good luck to her - you must be proud to have children who are so engaged in the community!