Milestone Celebration
April 20, 2016
PAWS NY is excited to announce we have trained our 1,000th volunteer since our first orientation in the fall of 2009! This fulfilling moment marks a milestone in our organization’s history and represents the dedication of our volunteers, helping to provide much needed services to a vulnerable population in NYC.
Many of our clients are homebound, elderly or ill and as a result do not receive much social engagement from other people. Their pets become their sole companions during these difficult times, but their inability to care for them threatens this human-animal bond. Our volunteers change all that! Since the start, volunteers have donated 25,600 hours of their time on 39,708 visits to help our clients and their pets remain together. These volunteers are exceptional people who want to make a difference in their community by helping not only people, but pets too. They are working professionals, students, retirees, and others, all of whom make a minimum 6 month pledge to their client, keeping a consistent appointment with them, while also creating a wonderful relationship with the client and pet. Our volunteer program is different, as our Founder/Executive Director, Rachel Herman states “you get a pet and a surrogate grandparent as well”.
We are excited to see what the upcoming years bring to our organization and we know that as we continue to grow the volunteers are what make this all possible.
Photo Credit: Emily DeWan