As the holiday season rolls around, it truly brings out the best in people – the giving side of people. Whether that be giving to charity or donating your time, the holiday season is a time of year where people come together to help others.
Have you ever wanted to get involved around the Centre County area but just weren’t sure where to start? What about volunteering at an animal shelter? I know there are animal lovers out there and these animals could really use our help and lots of love, especially this time of year.
At Centre County PAWS, they make it very easy for people to volunteer by completing an easy two-step process. If you so choose to volunteer at PAWS, you must fill out a volunteer application, which can be done online. You can choose to volunteer on your own or volunteer within a group (if you’re involved in an organization here on campus and are looking for philanthropy opportunities, this could be a good event to consider).
The second step in the process is to preregister for a training date. There are many different volunteer areas at PAWS and you must choose an area before requesting registration for your desired area of training. These areas include: cat care, cat adoption helper, dog care, dog adoption helper, front desk and training for other volunteers. After you choose an area that you wish to volunteer in, then you can register by email for a training time.
According to the PAWS website, “it takes hundreds of volunteer and staff hours to maintain and grow the Center. The number of paid staff is limited so volunteers comprise the vast majority of people power at PAWS. It takes numerous volunteers to care for the dogs and cats every morning and evening, and there are dozens more “behind the scenes” volunteers working on adoption applications, fundraising, scheduling, ongoing medical care and much more”. Centre Country PAWS looks at their volunteers as “the heart and soul” of the non-profit organization.
As you can see, volunteers are an extremely important and valued part of the PAWS organization; without volunteers, there would be no animal shelter. So this holiday season, get out there and do you part – volunteer at a local animal shelter!
