As we look back on last week’s national celebration of volunteers, it’s important to remind ourselves that volunteers are the lifeblood of what we do at the Kingston Humane Society (KHS).
Brenda comes in once a week to organize our ever-changing storage room, do laundry and sort through donations, giving our ward attendants more time for animal enrichment.
Janet monitors lost and found social media sites and matches lost pets with an anxious families searching for their cat or dog, giving our Customer Care team more time to review adoption applications and find forever homes.
Doug’s maintenance skills and his jack-of-all trades knowledge saves us the cost of bringing in contractors, allowing us to direct more resources to behaviour training or advanced medical care.
Belinda supports our admin team. Barb goes through adoption applications. Ruth collects our plastic Begging Dog piggy banks. Brandy gives up her weekends to support our events. Michelle, Maria, Melanie, and Brian walk all the dogs and Nancy and John pick up and deliver whatever we might not have time to go out and get. These are just a few of the folks who play a vital role in the smooth operations of the KHS.
If the day-to-day volunteers are the lifeblood of what we do, then foster volunteers are the heartbeat. When we’re too full or too overwhelmed, which is too often, the fosters open their homes to dogs, cats, rabbits and rats. Whether it’s a big dog that doesn’t do well in a shelter environment or six newborn kittens that need bottle-feeding, our fosters are always willing to help. That was never more evident than five years ago, when the pandemic hit. Without realizing it, our foster program went through a stress test like nothing we could have imagined and they passed with straight A’s and flying colours.
In March of 2020 when we made the decision to close our doors at the outset of COVID, we didn’t know if it would be for days, weeks, months or even years. What we did know was that with the whole world locked down, the animals in our care would have no chance to find a forever home.  We needed to change our operational model from temporary shelter care to indefinite home care and we had to act quickly. Within 48 hours of closing our doors, we found homes for 75 animals; all with volunteers. Five years later, I’m still astounded by the immediate and overwhelming community response. Our model of care changed that day and it’s a good thing. We fast-tracked online adoptions and after a few months, we began opening a few hours a day to keep animals moving from our care into forever homes. No one could have predicted the extent of the pandemic fallout. After the rush to adopt lockdown companion animals, workplaces began to reopen. The subsequent deluge of surrenders, returns and abandonments was staggering. Over the next three years our daily numbers soared to over 300 animals; more than double our capacity. Without foster volunteers, hundreds of those animals would have been left to fend for themselves. Instead, we were able to withstand the largest demand on our services in a century-and-a-half of existence. Their commitment to animals recovering from surgery or treatment as well as animals that need the kind of moment-to-moment care we can’t offer in our cramped and aging shelter, is worthy of a year’s recognition, not just a week. Many of the original 75 foster volunteers who stepped up during COVID without any idea of how long their help might be needed, continue to play a critical role today. Their dedication gives us the flexibility to offer more help to Provincial Animal Welfare Services, city and township animal control officers, rescues, and fellow humane societies; all due to the compassion and devotion of our volunteers.
English Poet and writer Joseph Addison said, “No one is more cherished in this world than someone who lightens the burden of another.” I would agree and go one step further. No one is more valuable to the success of the KHS than the volunteers that lighten the burden of our staff and our animals. They’re super heroes and we cannot thank them enough.