Potter League

This post was written by Pat Fairchild who is a committed volunteer for the Potter League of many years:
There are so many good things about volunteering at Potter League for Animals. The very best being that there are so many happy endings, and it is always thrilling to see happy, smiling humans walk out with their new pet—be it dog, cat, rabbit, guinea pig, and even more exotic companion animals. Another reason I love the Potter league are the volunteers. They are so appreciated and so needed. The latest Annual Report, published in October, states that the time volunteers provided to the shelter was equivalent to 17 additional paid staff. The last reason I’ll mention is that most of the volunteer jobs needed do not require certain times or lengths of time. You go whenever you want and stay however long you want. All of it is still needed and necessary.

To visit or volunteer at the shelter, take Oliphant Lane in Middletown via either West Main or East Main Road to number 87. It is new, beautiful, clean, and welcoming with animals which are under no stress. In other words, it is like no other animal shelter you have ever seen. I promise this is true because the Potter League is also LEED certified, totally green.

If you want to volunteer at the Potter League, I feel must insist that you love animals as much as I do. Their welfare must always come first. The process of adoption is guided by staff who work very closely with the people interested in finding a new pet, with the best interest of the people and the pet paramount so that the match is good and lasting. There are follow-up services available—training for dog and owner, follow up calls made to new adopters, trainers available to do one-on-one counseling with owners and their pets with problems. Social services with animals of all sorts! Everything is designed to make these adoptions successful so that the pets have found their forever homes.

The process for becoming a volunteer starts with filling out a volunteer application which can be picked up at the shelter or found online at potterleague.org. Anyone under 15 must volunteer with an adult. A new applicant attends an orientation course first, which is given once a month on a Saturday morning. At this time information will be given about how the shelter works, what volunteer opportunities are available and needed, and a tour given of the entire shelter, even behind the closed doors that the public doesn’t see. If your choice is to volunteer with the animals, you will take a short safety training course, and you’re on-board. This could mean you are ready to socialize cats or rabbits, or walk dogs. Advanced learning for volunteers is available for training and working with dogs that have yet to have little or no training. There are so many other services needed such as data entry, phone answering/calling, fostering kittens, cats, or dogs,  running special events, cleaning animals’ rooms, transporting animals to vets, taking animals to visit nursing homes for pet therapy, and on and on.

The Boys and Girls Club

The Central Clubhouse of the Boys and Girls Club of Newport County is located at 95 Church Street in Newport, RI—behind the Hotel Viking. The Clubhouse is located on the RIPTA Trolley Route in addition to being accessible by car and foot. Anyone who would like to volunteer can walk right into the front desk and ask for a volunteer information packet. You will be asked to fill this application out and agree to have a background check. A background check is needed for anyone in the State of Rhode Island who wishes to work with children. The volunteer coordinator, CiCi Dunn, will contact you via email with more information about training and orientation. Volunteer orientations are held every Tuesday and Wednesday of the month. The Central Clubhouse drop-in hours are typically from 2 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.—with some variations in between. Volunteers can choose to work with young children, tweens, or the teens in the teen center. The BGC provides a range of activities and learning opportunities for its members. These include, but are not limited to an art room, a music room, a dance studio, and a swimming pool. More information can found at bgcnewport.org.

I had a very positive experience working at the Boys and Girls Club. Originally, I began volunteering there to complete service hours for a class. However, I loved the environment of the BGC so much; I continued to go well after my service hour were complete. Like myself, many other volunteers decide to stay at the BGC and some eventually become staff members. I worked in the Teen Center—which is mostly referred to as “The Club.” The Teen Center has a music studio, an art room, a game room, a stage, and a kitchen where kids can purchase snacks. As a volunteer in the Teen Center, my role consisted largely of providing support and educational help for the kids. I helped many Club members with college applications, senior projects, and other projects they were interested in. I spent most of my time at The Club in the art room, where I helped the art coordinator paint murals and develop projects for some of the younger Club members. Volunteers are free to come and go whenever is best for them, provided they have a BGC bar code identification card that allows them to punch in and out. This system is in place for the safety of the children, so that there is written record of who is in the Clubhouse at all times—the kids punch in and out too.

Working with teenagers was a little intimidating at first because they have established relationships amongst themselves as well as staff. I found it a little difficult in the beginning to engage them in certain activities. However, after a week or two they realized that I made a commitment to be there for them and welcomed me. The kids argue amongst themselves and the staff sometimes, but it’s really just one big family. Some of the staff members are former club members who are now college students. In short, volunteering at the BGC is a wonderful way to get involved with kids and help them reach their potential. The experience has definitely shaped who I am as a person and I continue to use the skills that I learned interacting with the teens in my daily life.

Blenheim-Newport Assisted Living

Blenheim (pronounced differently depending on who you talk to) is a large agency off of Valley Road in Middletown. The capital "T" shaped facility is placed with a healthy distance from the busy road and sandwiched between Newport Animal Hospital and Temple Shalom. My main interactions with Blenheim come from 2007-2008 when I volunteered in their activities department. If you are interested in activities, games, or macro volunteering, I suggest going through activities. For the most part I worked with two women, Claudia and Jeanie. Their office was on the second floor, diagonally to the right out of the elevators.
One of the first things I learned at Blenheim is that everyone is called Mr. ______ or Mrs. _______. Very, very rarely are first names used. This is a common way to address residents of long-term care facilities, nursing homes, or other senior living centers, but in Blenheim's case it appears as more of an absolute code (more strict) than other facilities. I never learned the first names of the people I met. There are several other volunteer opportunities that were available to me at Blenheim apart from BINGO. During the winter holiday season, I brought a group of students to help decorate the facility mainly by erecting Christmas trees in various areas of the building. Other opportunities included ice cream sundae scooping and musical performances. Activities are not isolated to the building, however. Blenheim includes large grounds which stretch out to the street and around. The side walks were created with wheelchairs and walkers in mind and are linked to gazebos and benches that many residents and families take advantage of.
Each Tuesday in the afternoon I was ran BINGO and called numbers. For all of you who have never been a caller, it's no easy job. Participants may be quick to transfer their anger to you if they are not getting ahead. I recommend speaking loudly and clearly and repeating the call several times as most of the people I serviced were partially deaf. That isn't to say slow down--many will become aggravated with you if you go too slow. Food services would always bring in snacks half-way through BINGO: usually cookies and punch. Don't stop in a middle of a game! Try and help wrap up a game so those bringing in the snacks have more success asking what the residents want and so others aren't bothered by constant interruptions. Snack time is brief, but it is a good opportunity to have the residents learn a little more about you and for you to learn more about them. BINGO is such that you would most likely see the same faces week to week and get to know the participants slowly because of that. Regulars often also have certain cards they like, perhaps a lucky seat, and often specific chips they prefer that they think will bring them good luck. I did my best to try and honor that to absolve conflict.
One of Blenheim's strengths is the amount of space they have and the flexibility with which it can be used. My experience working with activities at different senior living centers tells me that the agencies are always looking for fresh ideas that their residents have not yet been exposed to. They are probably the best resource to direct you as to what may or may not work in your program, but they are often more than willing to bring new ideas forward and have others run a program. Calling Blenheim (401-239-2509) is an easy way for more information or if you are more comfortable speaking to someone in person, the front desk a little to your left when you walk in is always helpful. Last, if you do volunteer at Blenheim or other anywhere else that services the elderly, I urge you to recognize how vulnerable the people you are working with truly are. By living in a facility suddenly their lives are a lot more regimented and others are making many decisions for them. In some ways this is very nice and great deal less worrisome. In other respects, it is a loss of freedom and independence. The residents are "stuck" in a sense and you are free to come and go as you please. The best way to counter this is to keep confidentiality. Names and other distinguishing details are best kept in-agency and not brought to friends or other outside sources.

McKinney Shelter

The McKinney Homeless Shelter, or the McKinney Cooperative Shelter is located in the heart of Newport, at 15 Meeting Street--the back on 50 Washington Square. It's easily assessable if you know where to go, the trouble is finding it. Meeting Street is a one way close to the confusing cluster of streets that connect Broadway to Touro and Washington Square. If you are driving to the McKinney Shelter, I recommend parking on in the free parallel or diagonal spots on Broadway. Once you've located the door, ring the doorbell to gain entrance and go down the staircase to the offices below. Though there is presently no website for the shelter, the internet holds a wealth of information about its services. The link to the shelter's google information page is listed to the right.
The shelter is open in the evenings starting at 4:30pm and the doors close at 8:30pm.The shelter holds many for dinner and then houses those on a first come first serve bases. A meal is often provided out of the shelter's minuscule kitchen. This kitchen should probably only hold two chef's maximum as the stove, sink, refrigerator, cabinets, and the pots in pans that line the walls take up most of the room. My experience with the McKinney Shelter has been very positive. A group of college students including myself organized a spaghetti and meatball dinner at the shelter one weekday night. I advise any volunteers planning on creating a similar event to check out the kitchen prior to buying the materials. My group was large in number, and most of the volunteers could not fit in the kitchen. If we had known this ahead of time, we may have either reduced the volunteer number, changed the menu so that the focus was not on the oven, or provided other services like entertainment as well as a meal. We also planned to donate the pots and pans we used (and bought specifically for the meal) to the shelter. We purposefully did this because we had heard many of these items had been stolen a week prior. Had we known exactly what kitchenware the shelter had lost, and the items that will and will not work for that kitchen ahead of time, we may have chosen different ware.
Once we finished preparing the meal we hung around for a little to speak to those who were going to (hopefully) enjoy our meal. We realized we were taking up more space than was helpful, however, and left the food to be self served. We had arrived at about 5:30 and left just before 7. It's a short volunteer effort, but not one many take on. Apart from familiarizing yourself with the kitchen ahead of time, I also recommend finding out the calender of soup kitchens and other meal providers in the area. Instead of double booking the population, find a day when food would usually be served at the McKinney shelter or (even better, but rare) a day when there is a hole in the meal schedule--meaning there is no planned meal to be prepared in Newport. If you are preparing a meal (that is the standard volunteer option) make sure your meal is going to show up on that calender as well, and it wouldn't hurt to spread the word either. I suggest contacting the churches and centers that host similar dinners throughout the month ahead of time, so they can help you get the information out there. Obviously you're going to want to call the McKinney Shelter ahead of time and plan for your service. Their number is (401) 846-6385. That may connect you automatically to 50 Washington Square (the building complex the organization shares). All you have to do is ask for the McKinney Shelter and then explain what you want to do. Those on staff may reconnect you several times, but ultimately they do not seem too concerned about knowing the details of your invested time or service. Simply knowing the date and what you are providing sufficed for my group. If you do not want to prepare food, there are other options available to you as well. If you know a meal is being prepared at the shelter on a particular night, the guests may enjoy a performance of sorts--music, improv, comedy, etc. The options are limitless!