It’s Animal Shelter and Rescue Appreciation Week, and that means it’s time to thank the hardworking people who save so many animal lives and make adoptions possible.
Shelter cat. Photo credit: flickr creative commons, toomanytuxedos
According to the ASPCA, approximately 1.6 million shelter cats are adopted every year from shelters around the U.S. What would we do with that many more cats on the streets?
There are lots of ways you can help your local animal shelter or rescue.
Volunteer
Animal rescue isn’t a profitable business. It is expensive and time consuming, so it relies a lot on dedicated volunteers. You could be one of them! You already know how to scoop a litterbox, so you have skills they need.
Your local rescue probably needs foster homes for cats. If you don’t have room in your home for fosters, maybe you have time to help out at an adoption center or helping staff adoption events.
If you can’t do that, there are ways your local shelter may need help that doesn’t need direct contact with animals, like helping with data entry or social media.
Collect Donations
What does your local cat rescue need? If you ask them or check their Amazon wish list, you might be surprised it’s a lot more than cat food and litter!
Many rescues need donations of paper towels, bleach, and other cleaning supplies to keep their facilities clean. They may also need office supplies to generate the paperwork necessary for adoption contracts or hand sanitizer to help keep potential adopters from accidentally spreading germs between the cats up for adoption.
Before you get rid of those old towels, ask your local rescue organization if they want them. They may not match your new shower curtain, but homeless cats won’t care about that.
Towels. Photo credit: flickr creative commons, mikecogh
Of course, there’s nothing like donating money to your rescue organization. It helps pay for veterinary costs and for supplies needed to keep caring for cats until they find happy homes.
Adopt
If there is room in your family, one of the best things you can do for your local rescue organization is adopt a cat. That makes room in their care to rescue another cat in need.
Say Thanks
It doesn’t matter whether it’s this week or any week, be sure you thank the volunteers you meet who work in animal rescue. They give so much of their time and their hearts to helping cats.
Without volunteers in animal rescue, our family wouldn’t include Cupcake, Newton, or Pierre. So we thank everyone involved in animal rescue from the bottom of our hearts!
Thank you to all who rescue animals, especially kitties. We thank the Contra Costa Animal Shelter in Pinole where both of us stayed before furever home.
Thank you to all who rescue animals, especially kitties. We thank the Contra Costa Animal Shelter in Pinole where both of us stayed before furever home.
Shelter and rescue volunteers are the best! I know our shelter system in Los Angeles has lots of awesome volunteers helping kitties.
Mom and dad help out the place they got me from, Orange County Animal Services, with donations of everything from food and treats to towels and bleach. Dad’s job allows him to occasionally come across things people have left behind in apartments, and he and mom collect as much as they can that can be donated to pets and people so that it doesn’t all end up in a landfill.
It’s a fantastic idea to donate towels! Having volunteered with animal shelters, I know they go through tons of towels and blankets!
My adoption fee for Ty was so small compared to how much I’m sure they spent on him – getting him from Thailand to the US, getting nearly all his teeth pulled, vet visits, etc. I am volunteering with the rescue now at their adoption and fund-raising events. They do amazing work, and I’m happy I can be a part of it.
The mom volunteers at one of our local shelters. She says is hard work…but fun too, and she knows she’s helping all the animals that are waiting to find homes.
thanks for this post…..it is ALL important
Some people are afraid to volunteer, thinking that they’ll be sad to see the animals or want to take them all home and know that they can’t! But if they would try, they’d know that their efforts make a big difference and they can give of themselves without it hurting.
This is SO important…we appreciate everything wonderful volunteers do!
I am so thankful for all the rescues, especially the one that rescued me.
This is so true. Most people don’t even consider the people who do all the hard work behind the scenes so that we meet and fall in love with our furbabies (this encompasses so much including taking care of them until we find them).
Thanks for posting this tribute to shelter workers. They are some of the best people in the world and deserve recognition.