Volunteers ARE a Big Deal at Rikki's Refuge

Ever wanted to be Mayor of your Neighborhood?

Dreams come true at Rikki’s Refuge!!!  And you could be the Mayor of a Neighborhood. 

Volunteers are a big deal at Rikki’s Refuge. 

Yes, we staff.  Our staff is wonderful, too.  Our budget is so limited that we are only able to afford to have staff for the absolute daily essentials.  The feeding, cleaning, medicating.  It’s a lot of work and it has to be done on a schedule every day, day in and day out.  No matter what.  365 days a week.  Rain, snow, sleet or heat. Holidays and mundane days.  We love volunteers who like to come in to help with this work too.  Some come in just to wash the dishes one day a week.  Others to help with the regular cleaning.

And lots of volunteers come to build new Animal Neighborhoods, make repairs to existing Neighborhoods, mow acres and acres of grass, do special seasonal scrub ups of Neighborhood Houses, and to keep houses warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  Every one of our 22 species needs volunteers!!! 

Ron, is our Director of Serving Cats.  His project this weekend was fixing up the temp quarantine pens.  This is an area where a group of ferals can do their quarantine time together and not have to be separated into scary cages.  They’d had a lot of water damage from recent flooding.  Now they’re all nice and clean and have new decks!!

Ron would love to vote you in as Mayor of a Cat House.  Your duties would be to keep that one house looking nice and special, arranging the furniture, the climbing toys, seasonal scrub up, keep the nesting boxes nice and warm with new fresh bedding, maybe even some painting.  It’d be up to you on how to make YOUR cat house the prettiest!!  And imagine the looks you’ll get when you go to work Monday morning and says, “I spent my weekend working in a cat house!”

Stacey is the Mayor of Rabbit Rotunda.  Every weekend she rakes out to keep the ground nice, scrubs house, works on drainage control, brings extra treats for her special friends.  Thank you Stacey for keeping Rabbit Rotunda looking so nice!!

Katarina is our Volunteer Director katarinagalvin@yahoo.com she can train you to be a useful necessary part of Rikki’s Refuge.  She worked all day Saturday and Sunday with lots of projects going on.  Keeping her eyes open and lending a hand where needed.  She had projects going on at Feline Fields, Rabbit Rotunda, Cavy Castle, Pigeon Palace, Doggy Downs and was working on lairs for werewolves and dens for ghouls for THE HAUNTED FOREST.    You are coming on October 22 aren’t you?  http://rikkisrefuge.blogspot.com/2011/09/dare-you.html

Next weekend, on Saturday the 15^th, she’s putting on The Fall Furr Festival - and it’s THE place to be !!!  http://rikkisrefuge.blogspot.com/2011/09/rikkis-refuge-presents.html  Games, tours, raffles, craft tables, the bestest bake sale, she’s got the best group of volunteer bakers you’ve ever seen, come and try them out !!!!!

If you’d like to help us get ready for the event, we could use extra clean up and set up crews Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning.  Contact Katarina to help out.  katarinagalvin@yahoo.com

My special friend Victor,

who kept me warm at last years Christmas Parade, helped do all kinds of thins all weekend too.

Doggy Downs Clubhouse One is getting it’s much needed new roof, thanks to Dan.  This is his first big project at Rikki’s!!!!

Robyn is a jack of all trades and works in all the Animal Neighborhoods, this weekend she was fall cleaning for the rabbits and guinea pigs.  Even the tops of their houses need cleaning cuz where there’s a will there’s a way and there will be poop in high spots and low spots!!! 

Jan, our Tour Director, lead the Sunday tour.  She’s our PR Director too and she brought lots of cool news paper stories she had submitted and printed for the Fall Furr Festival and the Haunted Forest.  You are coming, right???

http://rikkisrefuge.blogspot.com/2011/09/rikkis-refuge-presents.html

http://rikkisrefuge.blogspot.com/2011/09/dare-you.html

Karen came and brought nums for us critters.  She and mom have been friends since they met working at the same humane society far far away about 30 years ago!!!!!

Laurie had extra veggies in her garden and brought them down for the critters!!  Num num num.  We’re not picky, it doesn’t matter if it’s too much or if it’s damaged.  Our piggies and rabbits and guinea pigs and everybody but us cats and dogs is very happy to get something fresh and healthier than pellets!!!!

Ann scrubbed up all the dishes and helped with the washing.  Do you have any idea how many dishes, food bowls, water bowls and plates and platters 1300 animals can use in one day?  Helen and Adam call it Mount Dishmore when they come out to help scrub up.  And the laundry, which was running behind schedule cus the machine broke.  Everybody had to break and go get a spare one out the barn and install it.  THANK YOU people who donate your working appliances that you’re replacing!!  With a bed in every cage, quilts on the floor for sleeping, lots of linings for cubbies and cuddle areas - it’s mounds of laundry.

And I know there were more of you out there this weekend.  I went to check the log to make sure I got all the weekend activities and oh no !!!!  Nobody filled out the volunteer log since Sept 22!!!  But I know lots of you have been there !!!!   Please remember to sign in and out and enter a brief description of what you did!!!!   You deserve a big thank you and I don’t want to miss anybody!!!! 

Thank you Dennis for bringing nums for the critters!!!! 

And Jon our new Produce Procurement Manager for running the Recycle Unwanted Pumpkin Project 2011 !!!!  Yeahhhh.   With Catnip Candy in the hospital, she can’t be the one out there on the streets, so Jon graciously offered to take over the project!!!  Big clap for Jon please !!!!!!

Jon is a feline person (YES read Cat Man!) raised on a small dairy farm in WI and retired Army Corps of Engineer Officer.  You may have seen him hanging out with the cooks at Refuge events or hauling cat food and the like.