Puppy love; Seawolves volunteer at local shelter

Star // dennae taylor

ssu student showing some love to a puppy.

Ever wonder how to spend your Saturday morning? Why not spend the time getting to play with cute little furballs. As part of Sonoma State’s program Join Us Making Progress (JUMP), student volunteers woke up bright and early for a Days Of Service event at the Rohnert Park Animal Shelter. For JUMP events off campus, students meet in front of the school and carpool to the volunteer location. Students were then shown a tour around the shelter while learning about what goes on behind the scenes. Students had the chance to see the animal’s rooms, outdoor play facilities and feeding rooms. The shelter takes in different types of animals from dogs to bunnies. For pets they offer spaying, neutering as well as free microchipping. 

As soon as they got situated at the shelter, Seawolf volunteers were put to work outside. In the doggie play pens, they began shoveling piles of wood chips into wheelbarrows and then raking them to cover the older ones. Unfortunately, the weather did not hold up and the shelter supervisor took everyone to do some tasks away from the rain. Students were divided into smaller groups and each assigned different rooms throughout the shelter to give a deep clean. Designated teams cleaned the break room, cat visitor rooms and worked on other small tasks that needed to be done. Seawolves worked hard and made sure to leave every room spotless. 

After accomplishing all the tasks, students had some fun with the animals. They brought two sweet puppies named Pickles and Jelly Bean out for everyone to play with for a much needed rest break. Getting to pet the dogs gave everyone a boost of serotonin. For the rest of the event, shelter staff took students around and gave each volunteer a choice of dogs, cats, bunnies or guinea pigs to spend more time with. 

The animals that students got to interact with are all adoptable and the shelter brings in new pets every week. When talking to student volunteer Madison Moreno about her favorite part of the event, she said, “My favorite part was playing with the different dogs and meeting all the other volunteers that were passionate about animals…I was glad we got to help them out.” Getting to volunteer at a place that works so hard to care for animals was a big draw for the students attending. “I had a great time with the animals and you should definitely check out the shelter as they have a variety of animals there” said student Emily O'Reilly. JUMP is also hosting a similar event in April with the Humane Society of Sonoma County.

This event emphasized helping the local community and getting rewarded with plenty of animal time. The shelter was very grateful for Sonoma State’s involvement and generous help on Saturday. After a successful morning of volunteering,  every student walked away with smiles on their faces.