Today actually got some things accomplished. First, one of the cages that was on-hold chillin' in the basement for a while went home, so that freed up some room.
Then, the rescue is on adopt-a-pet, which has a volunteer section. Which I hate to say, is not many steps above useless. Though, it is better than nothing, as I can't say I know of another site that has a volunteer network at all. Anyway, the way it works is that people sign up as a volunteer and an email goes out to rescues saying there's a new volunteer in the area. As a volunteer (I signed up as a volunteer to see how this works on both ends), you choose how many hours you have to work, when you want to work, what you want to do (you have choices to pick from), what animals you want to work with, if you want to foster, you write a little blurb about yourself, and so on and so forth. And you sign up and get some emails from various rescues saying hey, just wanted to introduce the rescue, if you want to help out, let me know. So, after receiving several of those to my volunteer profile, I wrote up one for NWICR. And so, as a rescue, I can check, I want profiles of volunteers to show up for me if they are available any day, if they want to help with small animals, if they are any age, etc etc. Because, it does me no good to email them if they want to only help out with dogs. And so I selected any age, within so many miles, and small animals. I get emails about volunteers that are 70 miles away, that only want to help with dogs, etc etc. And when I get these emails, there's no way to tell that from looking at the email. The email basically shows, here's a volunteer, they are over/under 18 years old, they live in this town, and you can see part of the blurb they have written about themselves. So, I have to click on the volunteer, log in, and read what they wrote to see if they really want to help with small animals and if they're anywhere around here. Because let's be honest, a 10 year old in Indianapolis is not going to make it out here to volunteer, so I can save the time it'd take to send that email out.
This sounds great, right, because in theory, I get an email the same day someone creates a volunteer profile on the website, so you'd think, ok, its a fresh person wanting to help. Eh, no. 99% of the emails I send out to these people, specifically the ones that say small animal, I never hear back. And it's not even like it just says "come clean cages!!" the email has a list of various things that can be done at the rescue, most of which do not require getting grimy. But I almost NEVER hear back. I think I've heard back from maybe 3 people in the entire time I've been on the site (and it's been at least a year or more) and I probably send out at least 25 emails a month. Oh and two of those three were no shows when they were actually set to come volunteer.
So you can imagine my surprise when I got an email from someone asking what needs to be done at the rescue at the current time. So, I said how the store's closed and I'm taking time to re-stock and there's this and this and this to do, but then asked, is there something they want to do? They asked if we needed anything sewed. YESSSSS! If you all saw the pile of fleece I have that keeps stacking up.... anyway, so her name is Leslie, she came by today, I showed her how hammocks are made, gave her two boxes of material and some thread, and here's hoping everything turns out good. I told her, if she likes doing it, I have oodles more.
So then, been texting/emailing with a family who are looking at two baby chins, and they wanted to come see them to decide if they wanted them. They came by today, decided they do want them, and put down a deposit. Yay.
Set up an adoption of the ebony girl tomorrow, so she'll be going home...
Also had someone text about a cage we had for sale, they ended up coming by and getting it, so that's one less...
So then, I packaged up a water bottle and mailed that out and started making more toys. Got behind since I was sick. Well, still am, but I can breathe better now, so I can actually work on stuff again. Made a few fun chewies toys, those take forever due to the sanding of the large round wood piece. Then sanded a crapload of anything goes pieces and re-filled that drawer. Probably made like 15 toys. Had some sanded pieces left over so I bagged those up.
Finished an order that's been sitting around for awhile, emailed the person with the total. Just waiting to hear back.
Cleaned up a bit. Mixed up some more guinea pig food (donated food with the oxbow we feed). Cleaned the rabbit's cage again. He's finally starting to catch on to the litter pan idea.
I still need to cut up wood for a two custom hidey house order, and then wood to make a few more houses and I need to cut up scrap wood into toy parts. Oh! The box of the 2" x 3" wood pieces arrived today, yay! Been waiting since like October, it's time. Need to sand some of those, and sand more of those small circles for the fun chewies toys and fill up that drawer. I found some edstrom bottles lying around that can be put up on cages, gonna do that at some point. Also still need to hand out the christmas chews to the chins. They all got hay and a toilet paper roll today, so they were amused, but need to get the camera down there and hand the actual christmas stuff out. I did hang the "stockings" with the names (Winx, Toby, Shani, Shiloh) up today though.
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