The Central California SPCA has a variety of summer volunteer opportunities for teens. By volunteering at the CCSPCA you get the satisfaction of helping the animals, giving back to your community, and gaining valuable job experience in a fun environment. The ages of our teen volunteer program are from 14 to 17. Our Youth Service Program is designed to increase employability skills through customer service and office assistance. Students interested in animal careers are encouraged to apply to expand their animal knowledge and career objectives. Being a volunteer is extremely important work and supports the animal center in a variety of ways.
We have the following positions available for our teen volunteers to choose from:
Adoption Desk Greeter, Guide & Assistant (14+)
Adoption Center – Animal Kennels
Assists customers that are looking to adopt an animal, guides them with the adoption process, answers questions, and initiates adoption paperwork. Helping adopters choose the right pet for their family and type of home is key to this position.
Adoption, Rescue & Foster Services Assistant (14+)
Adoption Center – Rescue/Foster/Adoptions Department
Assists the Rescue and Foster Coordinators with office work and providing care for the animals in their department. The Rescue Department is in charge of transferring animals to other shelters and rescues. The Foster Department is in charge of sending animals into temporary homes prior to becoming available for adoption. These departments collaborate to help animals get adopted, transferred, or fostered.
Office Assistant (14+)
Education/Volunteer Department
Assists with clerical duties, prepares for special classes, creates animal educational material, helps with presentations, and attends CCSPCA Education events.
CCSPCA Ambassador (14+)
- Education Event Ambassador
- Adoption Event Ambassador
Offsite Event Locations
Provides the public with information regarding animal welfare, assists with offsite adoption and education events, and promotes CCSPCA services. They help the animals in our community receive better treatment by being an advocate for their needs.
Pet Detective (14+)
Strays Department Front Desk
Greets customers and answers general questions regarding the stray animals. Responsible for escorting the public through the Stray Animal Center in a professional and safe manner. Helps animals reunite with their owners by making animal-owner matches via record keeping, logging, and observation. Attention to detail and follow-through are the keys to returning animals to their previous homes.
Stray Assistant (14+)
Strays Department
Assists the Strays Department with the daily duties of the department including cleaning, washing, organizing, transferring animals (if 18+), and other care-related activities for the stray animals.
As a CCSPCA volunteer you can choose what position you want to do. You can even choose more than one position. Several of our volunteers do more than one job! We offer a flexible schedule during our normal business hours. Can’t volunteer Monday through Friday? Not a problem, we always need volunteers on weekends also!
Youth Summer Training Program
This summer the CCSPCA is offering several specialized training courses for volunteers that wish to expand their knowledge. The Youth Summer Training Program starts on June 16, 2015. Some of the topics include dog behavior, tour guide and pet photography. Below are the detailed descriptions of each program:
- Dog Behavior: Our animal behavior expert will review dog body language and do a live demonstration in the training yard regarding how dogs communicate with us.
- Tour Guide: With our increase in tour requests, we need a team of volunteers who can help with guiding a group of people throughout the animal center. Sometimes we get groups of 50+ people at one time, and we need help breaking them up into smaller sets. If you would like to become a tour guide and provide visitors with CCSPCA background information and history, this is the training session for you.
- Pet Photography: We will be creating a pet photography position for a youth who can demonstrate good photographic skills. This training will give you some background to animal photography and the process taken at the animal center to photograph the animals.
Becoming a volunteer at the CCSPCA gives you a chance to be creative and problem solve. You can gain a variety of skills such as customer service, learning to be part of a team, working independently when needed, communication skills, and how to become a good employee. Another great thing about volunteering at the CCSPCA is that it is FREE.
To become a volunteer, please visit our website: https://ccspca.com/support-the-ccspca/volunteer/ and fill out the volunteer application. For more information, please call our volunteer department at 559-233-7722 ext. 111.