Local Rescue Volunteers are Passionate About Pets
Here on the East Side, animal rescues are serious about their missions, because the need is huge. The almost all volunteer-run MEOW Cat Shelter and Rescue houses as many as 400 cats during the height of “kitten season,” but Marilyn Hendrickson, who handles donor recognition for the nonprofit organization, says there are lots of cats and kittens who need homes all year round.
“I have foster cats 365 days a year,” Hendrickson says. Hendrickson also writes a blog for Patch's Local Voices.
It’s the dedication of volunteers such as Hendrickson, who volunteers full time for the shelter, that allows MEOW Cat in Kirkland, and Motley Zoo rescue in nearby Redmond, to help so many animals. Hendrickson says that MEOW Cat, which has been operating for about 14 years, has a couple of paid employees but is 99.5 percent volunteer based.
“Money that might be used to pay us can go to vet bills,” and care for the animals, she says. The shelter holds several fundraisers throughout the year, including a wine tasting fundraiser called “Sips for Snips” that brought in $1,300 last weekend and will be used to help spay and neuter rescued animals. Hendrickson says every animal (MEOW Cat has a dog division, too) that comes through MEOW Cat is altered, dewormed, vaccinated and microchipped. Since MEOW Cat is a no-kill shelter, the animals can be in the shelter or a foster home for anywhere from an hour to a year.
Nearby in Redmond, Jme Thomas' life has basically gone to the dogs, but she couldn’t be happier.
At any given time Thomas has several animals in her home, and she can spend as many as 10 hours a day chauffeuring them to and from vet appointments, foster homes, and appointments with their potential new families.
Thomas (whose first name is pronounced as Jamie) is the executive director and a founding member of the nonprofit Redmond-based animal rescue Motley Zoo, which has rescued and placed about 425 dogs and a number of cats since it started taking them in May of 2009. Though the group has a number of volunteers and volunteer foster homes, all of the dogs that come through the program make their first stop at Thomas’ home in east Redmond.
Before launching Motley Zoo with her husband Bryan and board member Nancy Jones, Thomas had been working on a business plan that entailed creating a fashion line that would allow her to pursue philanthropic interests. She had also been fostering dogs with her husband for some years and said she had an epiphany that she could skip making money to give to charity and just go straight into philanthropy.
In the meantime, after working with some other rescue organizations, Thomas had developed ideas that she believed would help her create a rescue that used business fundamentals to allow it to do the most good possible—while honoring the commitment of the families that make the work possible.
“We try to emphasize that people are volunteers, and we respect and appreciate them,” she said.
People who provide foster homes help Motley Zoo learn as much as it can about each animal so it can match the pets with their new families with no surprises. Though Motley Zoo serves mostly dogs and cats, the organization has placed exotic pets such as lizards, birds and even a cow at one time, says Nancy Jones, who serves on Motley Zoo’s board of directors and has fostered 26 dogs for the organization so far.
Motley Zoo has foster homes all over the Puget Sound area and is always happy for whatever help people can offer, whether it's respite foster care over a weekend, or short-term placements called “dog-dating” that allow a family to do a test run with a pet.
MEOW Cat has between 40 and 50 active foster homes from Everett to North Bend, Hendrickson says, and always needs more. Some fosters families, of course, fall in love and keep the pets they foster. Cats that are housed in the shelter are all matched with a human “buddy,” a volunteer who makes sure their feline buddies get plenty of individual attention. “They get a crash course on socialization,” Hendrickson says.
Other ways people can help local animal rescues include donating money, food, or consumables, such as postage stamps, and of course to adopt a pet.
“It really does take a village to run an animal shelter,” Hendrickson says. “The way we see it, everyone is good at something.”
Best Halloween Jack O’lanterns: We Want Your Photos
Halloween is less than a week away, which means pumpkins can be seen everywhere.
According to the History.com website the tradition of mutilating a giant squash every has been around for centuries. "The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed "Stingy Jack." According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him," it says on the website.
So do you have a Jack 0'lantern you're particularly proud of this year? The show us!
Send your pumpkin photos to ann.archer@patch.com. You can also submit them on this page. If we get enough good ones, we'll put them up for a vote.
Woodinville Women’s Show Set for Nov. 5
The fourth annual 2011 Woodinville Women's Show is scheduled for Nov. at the Carol Edwards Center from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The popular show offers shopping, entertainment and enjoyment in an event tailored for women. More than 60 local women-owned and women-focused businesses will display a wide range of products and services targeted specifically toward women.
Exhibitors will have demonstrations and presentations on topics including healthcare and wellness, food, business opportunities, beauty, fashion, education, fitness and home decor. Cost for the event is $5.
Highlights of the event include:
- Goodie Bags for First 100 Guests
- Holiday Shopping
- Food & Product Samples
- Prize Drawings
2011 Woodinville Women's Show sponsors include The Y at the Carol Edwards Center, the Woodinville Weekly, Evergreen Health Care and others.
‘Superhero’ Creative Writing Workshop Comes to Redmond Teen Center Tuesday
Call all comic-book lovers and superhero enthusiasts: the Old Fire House Teen Center is hosting a creative writing workshop on Tuesday evening that will cover all the basics of crafting a story in the mythology genre.
"Comic Book Superheros" will be taught be poet Jeannine Hall Gailey, an instructor at National University and author of Becoming the Villainess (Steel Toe Books, 2006) and She Returns to the Floating World (Kitsune Books, 2011). The two-hour workshop begins at 6 p.m. at the teen center, 16510 NE 79th St. in Redmond.
The comic book class is part of a competitive teen writing series that is hosted by Redmond Association of Spokenword. All of the teen classes are open to youth between the ages of 13 and 19, and the workshops are free to students in the Lake Washington School District.
More information about the program is available here. To register for the classes, please email ofh@redmond.gov or call 425-556-2300.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: In Support of Dawn McCravey for NSD School Board
Thanks to the District PTA Council for hosting the School Board Candidates Forum. The forum questions were thought provoking, relevant and diverse. I was particularly pleased that a few of the candidates agreed on several critical issues. One of these was that our students deserved quality teachers, and that ineffective teachers should not be kept in the district. In admitting this, the candidates recognized how powerful an impact the quality of a teacher has on the success and failure of a student’s education and future.
A recent study released by the University of Washington addressed the impact of effective and ineffective teachers (http://educationnext.org/managing-the-teacher-workforce/ ), concluding that,
“As expected, there are large differences in classroom effectiveness between teachers who actually received layoff notices and those who would have received them in our effectiveness-based simulation. The two groups differ by about 20 percent of a standard deviation in students’ math and reading achievement. The magnitude of the difference is striking, roughly equivalent to having a teacher who is at the 16th percentile of effectiveness rather than at the 50th percentile. This difference corresponds to roughly 2.5 to 3.5 months of student learning.”
The candidates are not the only groups that agree on the importance of having and keeping good teachers. I’ve also spoken with members of the NSD teacher’s union who have admitted that ineffective teachers should not continue to teach.
Therefore, I am somewhat puzzled as to why (Director District 3 candidate) Ms. Davis and organizations that support her continue to combat against Board Director Ms. McCravey (also a Director District 3 candidate), and accuse her of being against teachers when Ms. McCravey simply testified to the legislature that a school district should have the authority to keep effective teachers and release ineffective teachers. Would Ms. Davis and her supporters like incompetent teachers to teach their children and grandchildren? Would they like the opportunity for their children to lag 3.5 months behind other students? I certainly would not, and I do not know of any other individuals that are crying out for that opportunity.
With that said, my children have been very fortunate in having wonderful teachers. All three of them love school, their teachers, and the staff that enrich their lives every day. Don’t all children deserve the same thing? We need to give ALL our children the opportunity to experience how exciting learning can be – and that starts with having effective teachers.
Lying (Lyng) Wong