A Pride member from Washington State shared her experience volunteering for the spay/neuter clinic of a local animal shelter.

What inspired you to volunteer?

It started as a work evaluation, to see what I could and couldn’t handle with my disabilities. Although we decided I’m unable to work, I stayed to help out. 

Thinking back on your volunteer experience, please tell us the story of what you did.

I volunteer at the spay/neuter clinic every Wednesday along with another person. We clean surgical instruments, wrap them in packs, and put them through the autoclave to be sterilized. We also do laundry, and wrap packs of surgical towels and drapes.

The other volunteer and I often have a nice time chatting with one another over the noise of cats mewing and dogs barking. We work right next to the cat room, which the autoclave is in, so we often check in on the cats to see how they’re before and after surgery. I have to say, it’s quite amusing and adorable to see them all woozy after surgery. Each week I pick a favorite cat. If I’d adopted them all I’d have 50 some cats by now! Lol!

Volunteering can be hard, my disabilities leave me with very little energy to start with, but it does feel good to help out every week. Thanks for reading my little story!

~ Reproduced with permission of the respondent ~

More volunteer stories and full results of the January 2017 PrideStrong Weeklong coming soon!