Maddie’s Pet Adoption Days

My New Volunteer Job

When I moved from San Diego to the Bay Area, I immediately missed volunteering at an animal shelter. Even though I can only devote a couple of hours each week to being there, volunteering made me feel like I was making a difference in my own little way in protecting the welfare of animals.

That’s why a few weeks after I moved here, I started looking into animal organizations I could volunteer at. One day I popped into the little, old building of an animal shelter that serves my area to fill out an application, and for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been a new volunteer there.

In coming from working at the San Diego Humane Society, I knew that in a way, the bar had been set too high for me. I’ve worked at other shelters before there and was well aware that their facility was way above average – the Ritz Carlton of Humane Societies so to speak.  The place is immaculate and beautiful, and every adoptable dog has their own room, complete with couches and TVs. This makes for a much more relaxed atmosphere for both the dogs and the people looking to adopt a pet.

Adoptable dog Colleen is looking for a permanent home.

The new one I’m volunteering at, San Martin Animal Shelter, is more of a bare bones kind of place. With the dogs only having small conjoined spaces to live in, all barking and feeding off of each other’s energy as you walk by, it’s definitely more indicative of the average animal shelter you can find in the U.S. While this kind of atmosphere can be a bit flustering both as a volunteer and someone looking for a new family member, I know that the shelter is working with the resources they have to do the best job they can do. I feel good in knowing that the time I can give there goes towards taking care of the homeless dogs who are living there.

Maddie’s Pet Adoption Days

Recently I started doing some freelance writing for the newspaper in my town, Morgan Hill Times. What’s really cool about it is that I get to write about topics, local organizations and events that I find fascinating. This week, I got to write about something near and dear to my heart: animals! The San Martin Animal Shelter is participating in an awesome event this weekend – Maddie’s Pet Adoption Days.

The weekend event is organized by Maddie’s Fund, an awesome nonprofit whose mission is to help achieve and sustain making America a no-kill nation. For this event, participating shelters adopt out dogs and cats to people for free, and then Maddie’s Fund donates money to the shelter for every animal adopted. There are 180 locations participating across 5 states, making it the largest free pet adoption event in America. The goal is to give all healthy, senior and treatable shelter dogs and cats a second chance.

The Maddie’s Fund founder is a wealthy businessman named Dave Duffield. I think it’s awesome that he began the organization to make a real impact in the world of animal welfare, and is more than happy to give away some of his wealth for such a great cause. For this year’s Maddie’s Pet Adoption Days, he’s hoping to give away $4 million away to participating locations. How amazing is that?!

I’m excited that the shelter I’m working at has the opportunity to adopt out many of its animals for free and receive money to further its goals for doing so. I was pretty psyched to see that my article made it into the newspaper in its entirety:

If you’re looking for a pet and live in California, Florida, Wisconsin, Nevada, or NYC, check out the Maddie’s Fund site to see if there’s a location near you participating in Maddie’s Pet Adoption Days this weekend: http://adopt.maddiesfund.org. It’s a great way to get a new dog or cat for free while also benefitting the organizations that work so hard to protect the animals in their areas!