Hello AARCS Family!
As many of you are aware, each year AARCS hosts an Annual Volunteer Appreciation Event. This event gives us the opportunity to get together and celebrate the previous year by acknowledging some of you who have gone above and beyond. Unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions we were unable to host it in early 2021. However, we still wanted to take the time to ensure we say thank you!
2020 was an exceptionally hard year for all of us, and although we continue to trudge our way through this pandemic, AARCS has continued to maintain our operations while following public health guidelines. In the early days of COVID uncertainty, our Management Team worked tirelessly to ensure we were able to keep each of you safe, and was forced to make some very difficult decisions. In our meetings, none of us knew how this pandemic would affect volunteers and foster homes, in turn affecting the animals. We were pleasantly surprised when we saw a huge increase of foster homes wanting to come on board. Not only that, but volunteers were still excited and willing to assist with animal care, do transports, help out with inventory and assist with setting up our new North Haven location in Edmonton! To date, we have been very fortunate, only having a few cases enter the shelter, which have not spread thanks to each of you following protocols.
Compared to 2019 and taking into account all the challenges faced, we were able to help MORE animals in 2020. Overall, we saw a 6% increase in animals come through AARCS programs! This was done with reduced volunteer shifts and hours, reduced staffing and limited entry to a number of communities due to COVID. Although that may not seem like a huge change, being able to add over 200 animals assisted, is something we are and should be, proud of!
The generosity, kindness and resilience of our AARCS family, has continued to give us hope and light through this uncertain time. Each of you has made a difference and allowed AARCS to continue to help animals. It is because of you that over 3800 animals lives were changed in 2020. While we may not know what 2021 has in store for us, I do know that AARCS will continue to persevere, and it will be thanks to all of you.
Below you will find some of your fellow volunteers and foster homes, who we wanted to send special thank you’s out too. In addition, you will also find the much anticipated annual video that traditionally goes along with this event! On behalf of all of us at AARCS, thank you for continuing to ride out this storm with us and continue Changing Lives Through Kindness! We couldn’t do it without you!
Annual Volunteer Video
One of our favourite parts of our appreciation event is putting together this video!
Check it out on YouTube!
Meet Some of Your Fellow Volunteers and Fosters!
Amie
In 2015, we started our Edmonton program and Amie was one of the very first volunteers who signed up. Since then she has not only taken on some difficult foster cases, she also helped coordinating our Edmonton dog foster homes and is now overseeing all of our Dog Caregivers at North Haven, including training! She has always been eager and willing to help out everywhere she can!
Maddie
In the two years Maddy has been with AARCS, she has been a caregiver in shelter and a foster home! This included several long term foster cats who were unfortunately sick, requiring a number of trips to the veterinary hospital and lots of extra love! The longest one of these kitties stayed for over six months!
Ashley
17 foster cats were lucky enough to call Ashley’s, home in 2020 before they found their forever families! In addition to back to back fosters all year, Ashley also spent time in the shelter as a cat caregiver. If that wasn’t enough to keep her busy, most recently she also jumped at the opportunity to assist our social media team!
Jamie
Jamie and her family came to our rescue several times in 2020, including fostering not one, not two, but three adolescent, shy, puppies with ringworm so they didn’t have to stay in the shelter. After several weeks of treatment, the even saw these guys through to adoption! Since then they have consistently fostered, including some Parvo cases, and have taken long term shelter dogs out for daycations!
Haven
Fostering behaviour dogs can be one of the more challenging things our foster homes have to go through. Haven and her partner fostered a long term behaviour dog for almost a year and worked closely with our behaviour team the whole time. They never gave up on her and showed an incredible amount of compassion, understanding and love.
Rafael
Many times over the last three years Rafael answered our last minute pleas for additional shift coverage and 2020 was no different! He spent over 100 hours last year, helping to care for the cats at Safe Haven, including some long evening shifts short some hands! He was also added to our amazing team of Shift leaders.
Debbie
Last year, Debbie helped AARCS out in a number of areas, logging hours with inventory, in the Veterinary Hospital, and taking care of the AARCS kitties! She spent many long shifts ensuring that each cat was cared for, and cleaned more than her fair share of kennels and litter boxes in the over 300 hours she spent at Safe Haven!
Megan
Megan is a foster of all species! In the last year she has fostered dogs, cats and bunnies! Her home is often a revolving door of animals, but will go above and beyond to make sure each one feels at home! Some of these have required long stays and a number of trips to our veterinary hospital, but Megan is always happy to have them stay as long as they need!
Nicole
Foster homes are integral to ensuring more spots at our shelters are available for incoming animals, and Nicole is no exception to that. Over 21 animals stayed in her care in 2020, including whelping moms and multiple fosters at one time! Lastly, Nicole also joined out team of Cat Adoptions screeners. She has been amazing with our potential applicants and handled each with patience and understanding!
Dawn
If you have ever wondered who helps our extremely busy Behaviour team with intake assessments when new dogs arrive, Hélène is one of those volunteers! She will also help out with enrichment and assisting with executing training plans for long-term shelter residents! This is a role that requires an extreme amount of patience, which Hélène has an abundance of! In the five years, she has been with AARCS, she’s also been a caregiver and shift lead, contributing just under 1500 hours!
Bianka
We have so many volunteers who come in when we have an unexpected intake or cancellation and need an extra set of hands. Bianka is definitely one of those volunteers! In 2020 she answered a number of pleas for extra animal care. She is one of our experienced volunteers on our cat caregiver team, and has been an incredible asset to our new volunteers who have come on board!
Terra Lee
Terra Lee and her family fostered a large number of dogs in 2020, and some of those were not without their quirks! Some required lots of time spent implementing training plans and working with the behaviour team. Despite some of these fosters needing some extra TLC, each dog was welcomed with open arms at Terra Lee’s home!
Stephen
Since joining the AARCS family in 2019, Stephen has been amazing to have as part of the team. In addition to fostering a number of animals, you can find him caring for animals in shelter a few times a week! As one of our shift leaders, he has also helped with training so many of our new faces over the last year! His kindness shows though in every interaction he has!
Taylor Family
The Taylor Family have had a rotating door of fosters since 2018. These guys have had everything from puppies, to behaviour dogs who need a lot of extra love. They meet each one with kindness, empathy and compassion. Not only is that kindness showed to each and every dog, but to each person who they interact with.
Natalie
The veterinary hospital is an extremely busy place, and our team are always so grateful for the volunteers help! Natalie has been such a great asset to our hospital staff and is a volunteer that they rely heavily on when she’s there. Often coming in for a full day, she works hard to assist our staff with ensuring the hospital is sanitary, autoclaving instruments and animal care as needed.
Hélène
If you have ever wondered who helps our extremely busy Behaviour team with intake assessments when new dogs arrive, Hélène is one of those volunteers! She will also help out with enrichment and assisting with executing training plans for long-term shelter residents! This is a role that requires an extreme amount of patience, which Hélène has an abundance of! In the five years, she has been with AARCS, she’s also been a caregiver and shift lead, contributing just under 1500 hours!
We know that there are thousands of volunteers and foster homes across the province, who make AARCS the amazing place it is. These are only a few who are doing absolutely incredible work with our animals. Each person is an integral part of what we do, and we want to thank you ALL for your incredible kindness and compassion!
Thank you all so much for continuing to be a part of this organization we love so much!
Kindest Regards,
Rachel Cote
Stakeholder Manager