Volunteers are needed
Dear Editor:
In the June 2 edition of the Morgan Messenger, Peter Miller wrote a letter to the editor commenting that pet owners need help and inquiring why the Humane Societies in Morgan County and Berkeley County do not have “Spay Today” programs closing with “What’s the hold up?”
The short answer, Mr. Miller, is this. The hold up is sufficient funds, generally from a substantial, annually-renewable grant, in order to be able to offer such a program. At one time, we had a spay/neuter assistance fund which was underwritten from a private donation and/or a grant. As there are no monies in that fund and no one has made a sizeable donation or secured a grant to replenish that fund, we can’t offer that help. We help people as much as we can by referring them to the “Spay Today” (a program of Briggs Animal Adoption Center in Charles Town) and even helping them with the paperwork required.
I can’t speak for the Berkeley County Humane Society, although I suspect their situation is like ours, in that, we, and most animal shelters, especially those in West Virginia, run on extremely limited funding (mostly from donations) and do a vast percentage of what we do through unpaid volunteers.
It may surprise you to learn that even our Adoption Center Manager is a volunteer. She maintains that demanding position putting in untold unpaid hours running the Adoption Center and doing the HSMC accounting. It shouldn’t surprise you that other volunteers, including myself, log untold unpaid hours doing most of the things that most businesses pay employees to do.
Many of the people who volunteer with HSMC are professionals of some stripe who use their skills, acumen, contacts and often their own money to get things done for the Humane Society. Professionals or not, though, if we volunteers didn’t do all that we do, our no-kill Adoption Center wouldn’t be able to keep running and the programs it offers, including low cost rabies and micro-chipping clinic, wouldn’t be available to the community.
In times like these, it’s not just pet owners having severe challenges coming up with funds for things. That’s why more volunteers are needed even more now, including someone volunteering to obtain donations or grants for our spay/neuter assistance fund.
Susan Kemenyas
Volunteer Community Liaison
Humane Society of Morgan County
Berkeley Springs
