Volunteer Opportunities for Kids

Volunteers are needed for walking dogs, bathing puppies, and giving lots of love and attention to the animals. After you have been a volunteer for a few months, you may be interested in providing a foster home for young pups or kittens. Sometimes puppies or kittens get turned into the shelter that are too young to be adopted so they need to leave the shelter and go into a home for a few days or weeks. This gives them the chance to get bigger and stronger before being adopted out at 8 weeks. Sometimes foster care is their only chance to survive.

Volunteers are required to attend a volunteer orientation class. The class is offered at the shelter the first Wednesday of the month at 3:30 p.m. or the third Saturday of the month at 2 p.m. Children must be at least 12 years old and attend the orientation class to volunteer at the shelter without a parent present. Children under 12 are allowed to volunteer at the shelter, but only if a parent attends the orientation meeting with them and is with them the entire time they volunteer. Please call 740-1290 to make sure there have been no changes to the orientation times.

Ideas for Kids to Raise Money for the Shelter

Sometimes we get so focused on trying to raise large amounts of money that we forget that the smaller fundraisers can really add up. In our community, there is a playground called Penny Park, that was funded mostly through change jars. Since we received a donation of 2 acres of land that we are going to build a no-kill shelter on, we have many kids asking how they can help.

Some ideas:

Knock on all the houses on your block (with a parent) and ask them to save their aluminum cans.
Pick up the cans once a week and recycle them with the funds going to help the animals.

 - During the school year, collect the aluminum cans from the lunchroom (or have the kids in a classroom bring aluminum cans from home)
This could also be a competition between classes.

 - Lemonade stand

 - Mow lawns. Many people would pay $20 to have their lawn mowed if they knew the money was going to help the animal shelter.

 - Garage sale

- Car wash

- Bake sale

- Babysitting

- Make catnip toys or dog biscuits to sell

 - Plant a pumpkin patch and sell the pumpkins

Or for the more ambitious:

 - Costume ball

 - read, dance or walk-a-thon

- student/faculty play off of some sort - talent show

- seasonal celebration (pumpkin carving contest, or best bet Halloween contest)

 - pet pictures with Santa

The only thing limiting you is your imagination (and your parents permission).