We have corporate volunteer days here at Humane Society Silicon Valley nearly every week! These events are designed to introduce new people to our organization’s mission and life-saving programs. We show these groups how, by volunteering their time and effort, they can make a difference in our community -- while enjoying some work/life balance.
We’ve had many groups from Cisco here over the years. Cisco is a great company in that they encourage volunteering, and back it up by donating $10 per person per volunteer hour to the nonprofit they are serving. So a group of 20 people for a typical morning of volunteering brings us not only a potential group of 20 new “evangelists” after their fun experience, but $600 for our animals!
Cisco recently requested an “expanded” corporate volunteer day, where instead of choosing to spend time with our dogs or cats, they enjoyed a few different sessions of volunteering so the participants could get a good feel for our programs. Because Cisco anticipated a group of 40 or more, we were happy to accommodate their request. Volunteers enjoyed a choice of socializing cats and/or dogs, training some of our dogs in a “beginning training” class, putting together dog beds (those engineers love using tools!), stuffing kongs with peanut butter and treats, and making cat toys.
After their visit here, this wonderful group of animal-lovers left fired-up with a deeper understanding of our life-saving programs, and many signed up to become regular volunteers, one is planning to foster dogs, and there was even a potential adopter!
If you work for a corporation that supports volunteering, consider a volunteer half-day among the animals, and directly help us save lives.
