Destination number: 98/178/36
Most of my adult life, volunteering has been a strong aspect of my life. I lived with my parents until I was about 23 and then moved up to the Bay area to take a new job for Safeway as a computer programmer. After I moved up to the Bay area, I needed something to do, so I got involved doing what ever I could to help an organization called the Concord Blue Devils who are located in Contra Costa county east of the San Francisco and Oakland area. For Blue Devils, I sold pull tabs at bingo games, helped at their rehearsal field and even got my commercial bus and truck drivers licenses over the years. I volunteered for Blue Devils for 9 years, and just about every one of those years, the Blue Devils would have a huge rehearsal for all the new members in Tuolumne California. To those camps, I would usually drive one of these two vehicles, which was either a member bus, or the equipment truck.
Just prior to getting married, I backed away from volunteering with Blue Devils and focused on buying a house. When I relocated to Amador County (South of Lake Tahoe), I got involved with the local animal shelter and started focusing on animal rescue which provided me with a purposeful outlet. Of course anyone who has been reading my blog for a while is aware of how I have become deeply interested in saving animals.
Earlier this week, on Saturday the 21st of May, I helped out at Rescue Ranch's Dog Days of Summer event where there were several rescue organizations hoping to find adopters for the dogs or cats in their care. It was a full day with a lot of sun, and perfect weather. In addition to the rescue's we also had a number of agencies with information about preparing for wild fire. Though we didn't adopt a lot of dogs from the event, we all enjoyed making new relationships and working to provide information to folks.
I transported a couple dogs on the 22nd of May from Yreka to Roseburg Oregon to a rescue called "Saving Grace Animal Rescue". Though it was a 2 and a half hour drive, it was a beautiful drive and the thought of helping save the lives of two animals was so worth it to me.
On Monday the 23rd, it was my RDO, so I went over and helped at the Siskiyou County Animal shelter. I love all of my volunteer gigs, but this one I think is the most productive for me as far as in the amount that I can contribute. You see the shelter funding is so small they only have one shelter staff person who is also the manager and two Animal Control officers for a county the size of the state of Connecticut. So, If I'm able to help Stephanie the shelter manager out, I'm basically doubling her workforce for the day. I got to help her with caring for and processing the intake of Kittens as well as dogs on this day.
Another of the organizations I am now involved in is the North Valley Animal Disaster Group (NVADG) based in Chico California. They work on evacuating animals from behind exclusion zones during disaster situations. Though there are a lot of areas where one can volunteer that are outside the exclusion zones, I wanted to be as useful as possible, so I have been pursuing as much training as possible with NVADG. The training I attended this weekend was "Evac Training" which helps us to prepare to go out in the field and operate behind fire lines with the approval of CAL FIRE. On previous weeks I've attended communications and Fireline training, this Saturday, we learned about checking out and putting on Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), how to check out Radios and also how to inspect your vehicle.
Its been another great week. This next week Remi and I will be at a Thousand Trails RV park at Lake Minden down by Yuba city. Next weekend is a mock disaster drill for NVADG. So, stay tuned, lots more blogging posts to come.
Here is this weeks VLOG.
Safe Travels
Remi and Eric too!
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