Volunteer

Why I Love Beacon Animal Rescue

By Abigail - Age 11

I love volunteering at Beacon. The first person I met there was Sandie, the shelter manager. Sandie is one of the nicest people in the world. I love to help people. It is fun to help others. You always feel good when you do and the people that you help always feel good too. All the volunteers at Beacon are so nice. There is SO much love there.

One of the first things we did at Beacon was to go into the cat room. It is fun visiting the cats and they are all sweet. We also work with the dogs. One dog, his name is Tanky, was very sick so we sold wristbands for Tanky’s surgery. Now he is all better.

One time we got to play with the puppies in their pen and it was so much fun. It is fun to know all the dogs by their names. The dogs are so cute. They all LOVE playing, just like me. We walk the dogs for Sandie when she is on the phone or really busy. It is so much fun doing that.

We also decorated a Christmas tree in July to raise money for the shelter. It seemed silly to use Christmas decorations in the summer. One time all of our school friends came to Beacon and we planted flowers. They look great. Another time we painted the walls and now they look so good. I also made donation cans for Beacon. It was a great project.

But do you know what the best thing is? It’s how Sandie is so welcoming each week.

Why I Love Volunteering at Beacon Animal Rescue

By Madlyn - Age 13

There are many reasons why I love volunteering at Beacon, along with my sister and my mom. One reason is that I love animals and it's great to help them out. Another is that the volunteers there are very sweet, especially Sandie, the shelter manager, who was the first person we met there. She was very welcoming and friendly. She affectionately calls us "my homeschoolers" because our mom teaches us at home, along with our older sister and two younger brothers.

The animals at the shelter are so great and really deserve a better home. The dogs are so cute, even though they do bark loudly. But the door to the dog room keeps out the noise well enough. The cats are cute also and there are so many they almost take up the whole cat room! The only hard thing about the cat room is leaving. Sometimes the cats will slip out the door and you hardly notice because they're so quick.

Since the shelter is kind of small, we do a lot of our volunteer work away from the building. For example, we made some donation flyers and passed them out at our homeschool Academy. We also painted a sign for Beacon to use for their art sale. Another project was to collect coffee cans to make donation buckets. And then, just a few weeks ago, we set up a "Christmas Tree in July" donation display, decorating the tree with dog biscuits. Once we even helped to raise money for a dog from the county shelter. The dog, Tanky, had been abused really bad and needed to have a surgery done. So we sold power bands to people in our school and we raised fifty dollars! One more exciting project was when I created the Beacon website, which I have to regularly update to include the new activities and events that are happening.

With all the things that we do away from the shelter you might think there's not much that we do around the shelter. But we still do some things there too. Last month we invited some other friends to meet with us at Beacon to plant some flowers to brighten the place up. We also painted the front wall with paw prints, while the Girl Scouts painted the side wall with a neat and colorful beach mural of dogs and cats at the surf. Then we painted the front room of the shelter with nice, bright colors and hung a border with some pictures of Beacon's adopted pets. Now the room looks nice and fancy.

So as you can see, we have a really good time volunteering at the shelter. Whether we are walking the dogs, taking pictures of the animals for the website, or playing with the cats in the cat room, we really enjoy helping out. But our volunteer time wouldn't be what it is without Sandie. She makes volunteering fun!