Volunteers

9/11 Service Groups at Furkids

When times are rough at Furkids, as is currently the case with the seven cats that are gravely ill, our beacons of hope and pride are the volunteers and service groups that come to the shelter to help buoy our spirits with their smiles, enthusiasm, generosity, and assistance in keeping the shelter’s day-to-day operations running smoothly.

Especially in light of 9/11, we’d like to highlight three dedicated groups that were here last year at this time as well.  We are warmed by the fact that they again chose to help Furkids during this solemn and reflective weekend.  We enjoyed their company.

We sincerely thank:

We would also like to thank the Waldorf School Green Team (below)
for helping us on 9/7. They are a great group of youth volunteers
who help at the shelter regularly.

Furkids & Community Partnerships

We recently featured our new partnership with Jewish Family & Career Services in our June 2011 newsletter.  We wanted to expand on how great it has been working with the group of volunteers from their Tools for Independence WORKS program — a division of JF&CS serving adults with developmental disabilities.

Pictured above left are Sammy-the-cat and Sandy.  Right: David and Todd in Room 1.

These great volunteers come in to the main shelter every Monday and Wednesday.  They clean in the mornings, go to lunch, then come back to socialize with the cats.  So they spend their entire day with us at the shelter twice a week.  That’s wonderful!  In addition to all those valuable hours, they also help at our Thrift Store on Tuesdays, where they help with sorting and staging the donated items that come in to the store.

We are very proud to partner with JF&CS and we are beyond honored that their WORKS participants have chosen Furkids as the place where they want to help.  Three cheers for them!  And a huge “thank you.”

Left: Lynn holding Flower.  Right: Hadrian-the-cat is never one to be denied some sweet attention.  Thank you to Shivani for indulging him!

Volunteers Save the Day!

We can’t say enough about our fantastic volunteer network — especially our youth volunteers.  Today, we had to put out an urgent call for help because our regular group of volunteers for Fridays was regretfully unavailable.  We were thrilled when some of our youth volunteers showed up and saved the day!

A bajillion thank yous to Liliana, Anthony, and Angel (pictured left with Picasso the cat) for volunteering not just on this day — but all summer long at Furkids.

Safiya and James, both Creekside High School rising seniors, also joined us today.  They are both in the marching band.  Safiya is on the featured twirlers & dance team and James is on the drum line.  James also plays football.  Safiya wants to be a vet, and since today is surgery day at the shelter, she got a chance to see our resident veterinarian, Dr. Gordon, in action!  Though they are big fans of Morehouse College, they traded in their academic t-shirts for some Furkids attire at the end of the day.  Thank you, Safiya and James!

And it doesn’t end there.  The place was hopping today!  Prisca is going to be in the 10th grade at Give Center West.  Here she is (pictured at right) during Friday Fun Fest at Furkids with her favorite feline Tigger — who resides in Room 5.  Prisca has also been volunteering with Furkids all summer.

Youth volunteer Liam (6th grade, pictured below left) brought his cousins Isabelle (4th grade) and Bridget (7th grade) all they way from Philadelphia, PA, to help us today as well.  Bridget actually has allergies, but takes allergy meds and has never had a problem being

around cats.  In fact, she volunteers at a cat shelter outside Philadelphia called the Kitty Cottage.  This is their second trip to Furkids this summer.  We are so happy to have them with us.

Finally, here are sisters Grace and Helen (holding Trix and Belinda).  They have graciously decided to spend their last day of summer vacation with us.  We are so lucky.

It’s a great day at Furkids!