Procyon Wildlife is looking for volunteers. A busy baby season is expected! The more volunteers we have, the more wild babies can be saved! This morning on Breakfast Television, Debra Spilar, Custodian and Director at Procyon explains what positive impact you can make by becoming a volunteer at Procyon!
To view the interview on Breakfast Television, click on the image of link: Watch Interview Here
To learn more about volunteering, and if this is a fit for you, please visit: https://www.procyonwildlife.com/volunteering-at-procyon/
We are always looking for dedicated people to join our volunteer team! However, a lot of people who are interested in volunteering really just want to get to play with wildlife animals for free. If this is the case, then Procyon is not the place for you. Our volunteer’s main job is a lot of hard work, including scrubbing and disinfecting cages, cleaning poop, and other tasks that are not as fun as playing with animals, but necessary for the animal’s care. We must clean, and make sure animals are comfortable at all times.
Step 1: Check Eligibility
To be eligible to volunteer to you must meet the following requirements:
• Be at least 18 years of age
• Be fluent in English and eligible to volunteer in Canada
• Be able to commit a regular volunteering schedule for at least 7 months (no commitment required until you’ve tried one volunteer shift)
• Be able to navigate our facilities safely and follow all rules and instructions
• Be able to follow us on Facebook, receive our newsletter and be able to log into Just4volunteers website to keep up-to-date on protocols, events, other news, etc
• Attend an Orientation before your first volunteer shift
Step 2: Attend an Orientation
Before anyone is allowed with our animals, they must attend an orientation. This will be an information session, introduction to our animals, and walk-through of. our facilities. The orientation will cover:
• What our organization does, the services we provide, our goals and ambitions
• Our range of animals
• What to wear
• General rules
• Protocols to follow
Step 3: Attend Our Training Sessions
Our training sessions are scheduled the last week of March on different days and times of the week. Before working with our animals, you must attend training sessions.
Step 4: Make the commitment
The key to a successful volunteer program is commitment and consistency. If you want to be a regular volunteer, we ask that you commit to some kind of consistent shift. One 5 hour shift a week is what most of our volunteers do. What we absolutely do not want are people who come in once in a blue moon and only to see and play with our newest animal. If you just want to play with animals, volunteering is not for you. Our animals need to remain wild and not habituated to people.
Have special skills you would like to use to help us out?
All of the following can be done instead of, or in conjunction with regular volunteer animal care duties:
• Do you have experience in fundraising, writing grant proposals, or other skills in finding funds for organizations?
• Do you have experience in marketing, or have ideas on how to promote our organization and spread the word about us?
• Are you a good writer…would like to help contribute to our newsletter, manage our mailing lists, or contribute content to our social media pages on a regular basis?
• Do you have trade skills (i.e., carpentry, plumbing, welding, etc.), you can help build, upgrading or repair our existing enclosures?
• Are you a web designer or savvy in Word and can help assist with the content on our website?
Whatever your skills, education, and talents, our organization is so mufti-faceted that many people have kindly volunteered their skills towards various areas of our centre and helped us grow beyond helping clean the occasional enclosure.