Volunteer Opportunities

Volunteers are CWC's infrastructure. To continue to have a strong rehab center, we need your help.

Perhaps you have talents that you don't think a wildlife rehab center would need. Running the Center isn't only about the hands-on care of animals, although all work at the center contributes to this goal.

Perhaps you think you'd have to make a long-term volunteer commitment. Not at all. There are many short-term projects that add valuable pieces to the Center's big picture. And CWC's wildlife patients aren't the only beneficiaries of volunteer efforts. Volunteers can gain valuable work and life experiences for their efforts.

• Do you like taking pictures?
  We need slides and prints for our educational programs, brochures, newsletters, website, and newspaper articles.
• Can you operate a video camera?
  We create training and promotional videos.
• Are you artistically inclined?
  We need graphic artists familiar with desktop publishing software to help produce brochures and do newsletter layout.
• Do you like numbers and accounting?
  We need people to do data entry, process checks, pay bills, enter information into an accounting database, send out receipts, etc.
• Are you a writer?
  We need people who can write proposals. Or how about contributing to our newsletters, website, or promotional brochures?
• Are you an educator?
  We need people who can design and/or present environmental education programs.
• Are you a natural organizer?
  We need someone to design a database management system for tracking patient information.
• Are you a gifted gabber?
  We need people with communication skills to help answer phones and return calls from people who have found animals or who have wildlife questions. CWRC provides training.
• Is carpentry your thing?
  There are multitudes of general maintenance projects going on, large and small. We need a few mechanically inclined people to help with these projects.
• Are you a persuader?
  Periodically we try to get materials donated or discounted from local businesses, and we need someone to do some smooth talking.

Volunteer Benefits

Without the committed and dedicated energy of dozens of volunteers and staff persons, CWC would not exist -- hundreds of injured or orphaned wild animals would not be helped, and the concerned, caring people in our community would have no where to turn for help with the injured and orphaned wildlife they find.

As a CWC volunteer, you can:

• Gain valuable work experience to help build a resume.
• Use CWC as a reference for future jobs.
• Make a difference to the injured, sick, and orphaned wildlife admitted to the Center.
• Gain an insight to the possible careers working with wildlife.
• Benefit from feeling needed.
• Make new friends.
• Receive CWC's newsletter.

Volunteer Training

CWC volunteers receive training in a variety of skills involved in wild animal care -- from admitting and examining injured or orphaned wild animals to determining feeding protocols to administering medications. Interested volunteers can learn about working with the non-releasable education birds, such as hawks and owls, and making environmental presentations to local schools and other groups.

There are four levels of wild animal care expertise for volunteer advancement at CWC. Training comes from workshops conducted by the Executive Director or other qualified staff members, specific CWC medical manuals and videos, and hands-on exposure to wildlife-care and medical procedures in the clinic.

CWC volunteers who want to present education programs receive extensive training in how to handle various birds of prey, such as great horned owls, red-tailed hawks, kestrels, saw whet owls, and turkey vultures. Within the program, volunteers can learn how to present different programs about wildlife rehabilitation, birds of prey, owls, vultures, or wildlife legends and myths to different kinds groups, such as grade-school children, high-schoolers, college students, even garden clubs.

Volunteer!

If you would like more information about volunteering at CWC, please contact the CWC Volunteer Coordinator by phone or email as listed on our Contact page.

If you are ready to volunteer now, complete our On-Line Volunteer Form, or download a form to complete and mail back to us. Volunteer Form: Word Format/Adobe Format.

Update February 2006, Chintimini Wildlife Rehabilitation Center