Volunteer of the Month - September 2020
In times like these we need to continue to be grateful for all the things we have. At VOKRA, we’re extremely grateful for our hundreds of volunteers who dedicate their time each week to ensure the kitties in our care get everything they need and are adopted into loving furever homes. One of these dedicated volunteers is Sabrina Ting from our adoptions team.
This September, we’re very pleased to be honouring Sabrina as our Volunteer of the Month. Here she tells us in her own words why she volunteers with VOKRA:
I first became a cat parent in September 2011, when I was a foster fail for my ginger kitty, Coco. In less than a year, I moved back to Vancouver and brought Coco along with me to enjoy the West Coast life. For a few years, I dabbled in a few volunteer opportunities as I started building my life in Vancouver, but nothing really lasted. The timing either didn't work or I just lost interest in the cause. I decided to find something that was related to animal care/adoption. I stumbled upon VOKRA by accident and saw a few opportunities that allowed me to volunteer from home and on my own time. I submitted an application and, in less than a week, I was connected with the adoptions team’s fearless leader, Peg. She guided me through the onboarding process and, before I knew it, I was hooked onto all things VOKRA.
Five years later, I’ve been (somewhat) constant on the adoptions team and also helped out on the adoption papers team for a short bit. I also became a VOKRA alumni by adopting my second fur-baby, Luna, with my now husband. Interestingly enough, as an adoptions councillor, I had adopted out Luna to one of my applicants. Unfortunately (although fortunately for me), Luna was surrendered in less than 24 hours due to an unknown allergy in the family. I took that as a sign and asked Peg if she could approve my application to adopt Luna. The second surprise was we thought we were adopting a grey medium hair male kitten. Luna turned out to be a grey part-Maine Coon female kitten!
As an adoptions councillor, I’ve had the privilege of talking to a lot of the applicants who are interested in adopting through VOKRA and walking them through the process of welcoming a kitten (or two or three) into the family! In the past five years of volunteering, my favourite part is seeing updates of the adopters with their new cats as they’re transitioning into their new homes. When an adoption is successful, there’s no better feeling!
On top of my regular duties as an adoptions councillor, I also became the training lead for the team, which meant I was responsible for onboarding new volunteers to the adoptions team. This year, I also took on wrangling the kitten waitlist, which becomes active during kitten season. This means a team of two is responsible for wrangling kittens as they become available to be adopted and to match them to a 250+ waiting list. Other duties as assigned include managing internal communications and processes within the adoptions team, mentoring and providing support to new adoptions councillors and assisting with the transition of a new database with the papers team. It takes a massive team of extraordinary people to adopt out more than 700 cats so far in 2020, despite the pandemic!
VOKRA has been such a positive experience in my life, I can't really pinpoint a specific favourite memory. I’ve many memories of team meetings at the Operations Centre where there's more discussion about the snacks in front of us than what's on the agenda, meeting with adopters and hearing their stories about why they're choosing to adopt, celebrating with the team about the adoption of a cat that’s been in our foster care for years and even conversations late into the evening just this past March when we were working through new processes that had to be created due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I absolutely love what we do and I’m surrounded by so many supportive people who are as crazy about cats as I am - what more can I ask for?!
THANK YOU Sabrina for everything you do for the kitties! All your time and efforts have ensured hundred and hundreds of kitties find their purrfect furever homes!
As a volunteer-driven non-profit, we clearly couldn’t do what we do without our extremely dedicated and hardworking team of volunteers. Thank you to each and every one of you!
VOKRA’s always in need of volunteers. If you’re interested in volunteering click here.