Volunteer Opportunities for Young People

"My nine year old loves animals. How can she volunteer here at the shelter?" Or a teenager calls and says, "My community service hours for my school are due next week. Can I spend the weekend at the shelter volunteering?" While these requests are genuinely rooted in a desire to help, they pose a challenge for volunteer coordinators. Because volunteers must be oriented and trained, most formal programs simply are not set up to deal with either very young children or one-time volunteers. However, you can recommend tasks that will meet the needs of children, keep your program on track, and help establish relationships that will expand your organization's reach and grow your volunteer program.

Below you'll find tips to help kids make a difference for animals in their home and neighborhood, in the shelter, and as animal advocates.

• Make sure that you are practicing kindness to animals in your household every day, by adopting rather than buying your pets (from hamsters to horses!), ensuring that all of your cats and dogs are spayed/neutered and that none of your other pets reproduces, and thinking about the potential impacts to animals of everything you do.
• Make sure all of your pets have ID on at all times (both ID tags and a microchip) and are properly licensed, and prepare and hand out flyers to your neighbors, friends and classmates explaining why pet identification is so important.
• Start a "lost pet detectives" club in your neighborhood, helping people find their missing pets (but make sure you have an adult supervising your detective work at all times!).
• Make sure that you have a disaster kit ready for each of your pets, including a current photo, a crate or carrier, extra leashes and collars, and a few days’ supply food and water, and tell your friends, classmates and neighbors about the importance of disaster-preparedness for their pets.
• Check with your local shelter about when the next disaster preparedness exercise is going to be held—those events frequently need members of the public to act as disaster victims who need help caring for their pets after an emergency.
• Volunteer to help feed a local feral cat colony or participate in an organized feral cat Trap Neuter Return event.
• Call Animal Control if you suspect animal cruelty/abuse in your community.

• Start a donation drive around your neighborhood or at school to benefit your local shelter, rescue or rehabilitation facility. Animal organizations always need money, food and treats, as well as gently used blankets, towels, toys and other supplies – look for a “wish list” on their website.
• Ask for donations to an animal-related organization in lieu of gifts for your next birthday.Bake treats for shelter animals to have as snacks, or make catnip or treat stuffed toys they can play with (but be sure to get permission from the staff before you actually hand out any treats or toys to the animals as some may have special dietary needs).
• Build play and enrichment opportunities for animals, such as agility equipment, scratching and climbing trees, and more. Please speak with the staff first to get information about proper materials and construction.
• Ask if there are ways you can use technology to help the organization, such as updating their website, creating a facebook page, developing an app, etc.
• If you enjoy taking pictures, offer to photograph adoptable pets or take pictures at an outreach event for the organization's website or publications.
• Find out if your local shelter or rescue organization has a foster program, and ask your parents if they are willing to participate.
• Offer to help the organization with planting flowers and bushes around their facility or perform other landscaping work like lawn mowing.
• Organize a community outreach or fundraiser event on behalf of the organization.
• Ask your school if you can start an animal advocacy and education club.
• Ask about creating and donating artwork, or perhaps even a mural for an animal-related organization.
• Ask if a local group needs help researching and applying for possible grant opportunities.
• Construct donation boxes for food and other supplies, and ask local merchants about placing them in their stores. Be sure to check the donation boxes regularly and set up a schedule for delivering their contents.

• Start an advocacy campaign, educating your friends, classmates and neighbors about the importance of spaying/neutering their pets, adopting from shelters rather than buying pets, and other animal-related issues. You can empower people to save a life!
• Subscribe to your shelter’s Twitter or Facebook feed, and regularly repost updates on your own social networking page—this is a quick, easy way to raise awareness among your friends and family.
• Visit humanesociety.org/youth for information on the latest efforts on how you can help animals.

Kids are enthusiastic about animals, and helping to harness and guide that enthusiasm even before they are old enough to serve at the shelter itself can create a lifetime of commitment to the cause (and can groom the next generation of volunteers!).