Need your ideas to find volunteers

[AbbyMom]

Please help! I need your ideas to help recruit volunteers for our cat rescue. We operate the adoption center in three PETsMART locations and we need more volunteers.

How do I reach out to cat lovers to let them know there’s a chance to help homeless and abandoned cats? They do, after all, get to dote on cats as well as clean litter boxes.

We list on the volunteer matchup site, but that's not enough.

I’ve made a flyer to distribute at the grocery stores and vet office bulletins.

But what else? If you are a volunteer for a shelter or humane society, how did you find out about it?

[Flatcoatluver]

well, I volunteer at our local petsmart adoption center, I had a love of animals and at the age of 14 I wanted to volunteer with animals. The shelter I first checked in with, you had to be 16 to volunteer. I found out by looking on pet finder, then finding alternative humane society on petfinder and clicked on our website. on our adoption site they said jr. volunteers needed, can take age 14 and up, fill out a application. That's how I found out and have been voluteering 1 1/2 years since!!!

[Laura's Babies]

I would post on bulletin boards and put leaflets in vet offices and hand out at Pet Smart and Petco, put on cars in parking lots and where ever I could. Be sure to mention how REWARDING it is to help those who can not help themselves. It would be great for kids out for the summer (and provide them with a refferance when they get ready to enter the job market), great for Senior citizens who would like to feel useful and important (what makes you feel any more important than a animal needing some attention?) Great therapy for anythng that ails you!

[catnapper]

I also volunteer at our local Petsmart. Do they give you one of those rolling carts where you can put folded leaflets in a pocket on the side? We have one of those outside the adoption center (provided by Petsmart) and put several pamphlets out. One of which is a foster brochure and one for volunteering. A lot of people have no clue they could help. You'd be surprised how many people go "wow! I can help too? You'll LET me???" and they get all excited at the thought of being able to play with the cats and help out.

[AbbyMom]

Thanks!

Flatcoatluver--Good for you! At our adoption center, 1-1/2 years is a long time for a volunteer to last. Not that I blame them. Everybody gets to a point eventually where they know it's somebody else's turn to clean litter boxes.

Laura--The senior citizens are a great idea that I didn't think of before. Silly me! We have a new senior center nearby. I will post there this week.

Another volunteer with a teenager is working the high school angle already.

Catnapper--yes we do have a "kiosk," but in our PS, the adoption center is in the dog section, so we don't reach all the potential adopters. But now that you mention it, I think I'll ask the manager for ideas for displaying leaflets in the cat section.

Anybody else got ideas?

[Laura's Babies]

If your store is like ours, there are windows you view the cats through? Couldn't you post a sign on one of those? Not a big one.. Something simple and small...."Be a Dear and Be a Volunteer"... Could put sayings like that on a heart shaped cut outs or cat cut outs and stick to the glass. "Hands Wanted! I need petting!" on a hand cut out...? Just throwing a few ideas at you...

[catnapper]

Laura, Petsmart does not want any signs or poisters pasted everywhere. Just the info on the cat thats in the window. ITs a company wide thing. If the Petsmart by you has it, they could get in trouble with corporate!

[AbbyMom]

Laura, Catnapper's said it. "Clutter" is not allowed. I don't mean to make them sound bad as they are very good to us.

We have a bulletin board, but like I said, it's in the dog section, so it gets limited visibility.

I think I'll use your cute "Hands Wanted! I need petting"

Thanks!

[Laura's Babies]

catnapper... I was saying "windows like ours" has to see the kitties through.. I didn't mean they have anything attached to them.

Abby Mom... help yourself to anything I said that can help!