{"id":17481,"date":"2022-02-23T01:55:38","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T01:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=17481"},"modified":"2022-02-24T03:02:27","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T03:02:27","slug":"essential-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/02\/23\/essential-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Essential Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Animal shelter has one more month to earn a $25,000 matching gift<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

For better or worse, something the pandemic forced upon folks was a re-evaluation of our professional role in society and what the term \u201cessential worker\u201d means. For Mountain Humane, a re-evaluation of the no-kill animal shelter\u2019s philanthropic role in the Valley was forced upon it only 10 months after it moved into its new 30,000-square-foot facility and just weeks before the pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to the nonprofit whose mission is: To change lives by connecting people and pets.<\/p>\n

Since the spring of 2020 (when the COVID pandemic took hold locally), the landmark animal shelter has had to revise and put on hold a number of ways it hoped to connect people and pets. But today, Mountain Humane finds itself on solid ground as it attempts, within its Rocky\u2019s Medical Fund campaign, to raise $25,000 by March 31. Doing so triggers a $25,000 matching gift and makes it possible to continue a program that ensures every homeless animal gets the medical care it needs. The fund also provides low-cost vet services to pet owners who can\u2019t afford essential medical care for their pets.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, the organization is working with the Graybird Foundation, a nonprofit that donates marketing services to other nonprofits. It is part of a board effort to better understand the Valley\u2019s present-day understanding of and relationship with Mountain Humane, post-facility move and post-pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe begin each client engagement with a stakeholder survey to understand the perceptions of those close to the organization, and that\u2019s what we are in the process of doing for Mountain Humane,\u201d said Shelley Willig, Head of Education Practice for the foundation.<\/p>\n

The survey isn\u2019t available to the entire community, but Mountain Humane executive director Annie McCauley explained that people within every \u201cstakeholder\u201d group in the community will be invited to take part in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to understand how the community sees us now in 2022, what\u2019s their perception?\u201d explained McCauley. \u201cOnce we glean that, we can better understand how to focus our resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Essential Resource<\/b><\/p>\n

One of those things Valley pet owners learned during the pandemic was how much their pets help cope with adversity and, sadly, how much they can cost. Shelters across the country hit record numbers of surrendered pets during the pandemic, and locally things weren\u2019t much different. However, Mountain Humane was able to energize its fostering program in early 2020 and it has tripled in size.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt absolutely exploded,\u201d said McCauley. \u201cI think it\u2019s a given how much this Valley cares.\u201d<\/p>\n

Something that hasn\u2019t increased at Mountain Humane is the return rate for any animal adopted from the shelter. It\u2019s something McCauley cares a lot about because it indicates a shelter is running its adoption program right.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a pet store where you see an animal, buy an animal, take it home, hope it works,\u201d McCauley said. \u201cWe\u2019re running this like an actual adoption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mountain Humane allows prospective adopters 60 to 90 minutes to not just meet but to also mingle with their prospective adoptees at the state-of-the-art facility. Staff and veterinarians are available for questions and consultations and, at the end of the appointment, humans and animals have a reliable framework to make their decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur driving question is \u2018Will this be a successful pet family?\u2019 McCauley said. \u201cAnd we keep seeing it works. Our adopters love this. Our staff loves this. Our return rates are next to nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the next few months, McCauley will wait as Graybird Foundation workers collect data from its community-wide interviews. McCauley said she anticipates the shelter will unveil its findings and the board\u2019s recalibration based on those findings some time in June.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think late spring is realistic,\u201d McCauley said. \u201cOne thing I hope the community understands is that we\u2019re using every square inch of this building to save animal lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Animal shelter has one more month to earn a $25,000 matching gift By Eric Valentine For better or worse, something the pandemic forced upon folks was a re-evaluation of our professional role in society and what the term \u201cessential worker\u201d means. For Mountain Humane, a re-evaluation of the no-kill animal shelter\u2019s philanthropic role in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,82,18,20,24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-community","8":"category-housing","9":"category-news","10":"category-nonprofit","11":"category-pets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17481"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17510,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17481\/revisions\/17510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}