Hello <<First Name>>!
Holiday fosters still needed! PAWS tries very hard to get our animals into foster homes over the holiday season to give our volunteers and staff a break. Every year, the same type of dogs and cats end up spending Christmas and New Year in their kennel/cage at PAWS. These are the animals who prefer to be the only animal in a home or who may not do well with young children. They are sweet, wonderful animals and can be left alone in the house-either free roaming or in their own room.
If you have a home without other pets or small children, you can really make a difference for our pets this holiday season. To become a PAWS' holiday foster, please visit http://www.centrecountypaws.org/foster.
We'll be closed for the holidays from December 22nd and re open on January 7th.
I hope you enjoy this month's Volunteer Newsletter!
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 Volunteer of the Month!
This Month's Volunteer of the Month is Megan Elmer, a cat care volunteer. Congratulations Megan! Check out the blog to learn more about Megan here: https://goo.gl/o08o5x
The Volunteer of the Month gets a blog feature on our website and their very own parking space! The Volunteer of the Month can be anyone who logged hours during the previous month or a Volunteer who has logged more than 4,000 hours. The volunteer will be contacted via email. If a youth volunteer wins, their parent or guardian will be able to use the parking space. Make sure to log your hours!
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Mark Your Calendars:
Volunteer Awards Brunch
When: Saturday, January 21st 10 AM
Where: Centre County PAWS
Join us in celebrating you and all of your hard work! We're having our Third Annual Awards Ceremony to thank our volunteers for all they do for PAWS. Volunteers are our heart and soul and we could not do what we do without you. Awards will be determined based on hours logged in Volgistics so make sure to get your hours in. We will have breakfast foods and drinks.
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Educational Classes
We'll be doing recurring costumer interaction training for dealing with potentially difficult visitors, a regularly recurring "how to" for cat and dog medication, and a regularly recurring dog body-language course. We hope you enjoyed the classes this fall and look in next month's newsletter from some that are coming up in 2017!
Karate Class
We're offering a twice monthly karate/self defense class by PAWS' resident black belts, George Chaplin and Mike Warner. This is simply an interesting perk we're offering fellow PAWS volunteers. George is a seventh degree black belt with 34 years of experience, 30 years of that teaching. Mike is a first degree black belt. George will teach fitness stretching, two-person routines under slow control though no throwing (concrete floor!). Most will be moving, punching, and kicking on the basis of the Uechi Ryu Okinawa Karate style. Class size will be limited to 20 people, so let us know if you're interested and what day works for you. Please visit http://doodle.com/poll/nmf9mtvnhhxvtdk9 to indicate interest and which day would work for you. Please also submit the days that tend to work best between Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings.
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Help Wanted
Group Volunteering
We're looking for someone to help us with our group volunteer days. We have groups contact PAWS to do community service around the facility and we like to try to accommodate as many groups as possible. Currently we're doing two days a month on weeknight evenings. One of our volunteers who's been helping over-see groups needs to step down and we're going to need some help in 2017. Please contact Catherine (catherine@centrecountypaws.org) if you are interested or would like more information!
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Volunteer Highlight
 Leslie Urish has logged over 2,000 hours! So we asked Leslie a few questions about her time at PAWS and in Centre County.
How long have you been at PAWS?
I started volunteering about 6 years ago.
What's your favorite thing about PAWS?
My favorite thing about PAWS is that we are able to help so many cats and dogs. We give them a place to be loved and taken care of until they find their forever home.
What's your favorite thing to do at PAWS?
My favorite thing to do at paws is to spend time with the cats and dogs. I also enjoy training and mentoring new volunteers.
What are your favorite non-PAWS hobbies?
My favorite things outside of paws are taking care of my dog and 2 cats (all PAWS alums), spending time with friends and family, traveling, and working on my house.
Where are you from?
I'm originally from the Ebensburg, PA area but had lived out of state in both Tennessee and Florida for many years before I moved back to PA.
How long have you lived in Centre County?
I have lived in Centre County since 2008. I didn't know anyone when I moved here and one of the reasons I started volunteering at PAWS was to meet new people. I've been able to make a lot of good friends and also get more involved in our community through volunteering at PAWS.
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Winter Weather
It's cooling down and getting dark earlier. With the cooler weather comes icy and snowy roads. Use caution when deciding whether or not you can make it in for a volunteer shift. If you cannot make it in, please remove yourself from Volgistics. This is important for shift leaders to know how many people will be on their shift, but also for us to decide whether or not we should open for the day. Please do not call in to the PAWS lines, we won't get the message soon enough to forward to shift leaders.
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We met our new best friend in November!
60 cats were successfully adopted in November, bringing the year total to 461 placements
25 dogs were successfully adopted in November, bringing the year total to 289 placements
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Jackson, now known as Jack, has been doing great! He has really settled down a lot now that he is acclimated to our apartment and has a schedule. When we first got him, he would whine by the door a lot, and always wanted to be outside. Now he sleeps a lot when he isn't on walks or running around at the dog park and plays with a lot of his toys.
He is fully house broken and is now crate trained, too. He loves his crate and sleeps in there regularly throughout the day. We haven't had any issues with him marking in the house, either.
He has really turned into a very different dog since we first brought him home. When we first got him, he was constantly anxious and wouldn't listen to a single command. Now he will go into his crate on command, only whines by the door when he needs to be let out, and is very cuddly and affectionate. I am so happy we were able to give him his forever home and I am so grateful
that PAWS gave me the opportunity to do so. Your staff is truly wonderful and we had such a great experience.
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Kiwi is doing well and has adjusted to our routine. We just took Christmas card pictures yesterday and Kiwi was included. Kiwi is a sweetheart and we happy to have her as part of our family. She loves to cuddle and play and the kids are thrilled to have a dog that will do both!
Happy Holidays!
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PAWS alum Jack (Jax at PAWS) turns one this week! We adopted him on April 7th and he was very shy at his foster home, but now he is a cuddly, friendly little guy. He purrs all the time and loves to cuddle with his tortie fursister Izzy. We are so lucky to have him!
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One year ago, Ruby had her "foster" stocking for Christmas that we were going to send with her and her forever home for Christmas. This year, here she sits, under our early Christmas tree with the same stocking except now she is part of our family!
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Love following up on our furry friends? Lots of our adopters check back in and while we can't post them all here, we post them on our Facebook. Check out the Happy Endings photo album on Facebook here: (https://www.facebook.com/CentreCountyPAWS/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1005665976141939).
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- Muning Wang
- Lydia Woollen
- Barbara Aalberts
- Cierra Lesser
- Richard Ashead
- Alison Roby
- Katie Greiner
- Cameron Wayne
- Luke Engelhardt
- Jacob Farris
- Katharine Kingera
- Suzanne Eckert
- Rory McManus
- Carly Sherer
- Noelle Marchetti
- Dee Muller
- Holly Seidel
- Joseph Caron
- Catherine Conlan
- Joshua Semat
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- Mary McLaughlin
- Celine Ridgway
- Karen Grubb
- Ginny Newman
- Darlene Lucas
- Kayla Williamson
- Ritika Bafna
- Cristina Mihaila
- Raquel Wanko
- Sarah Flick
- Danielle Ruffe
- Fiona Frassinelli
- Corinne Petruzzi
- Andrew Seidel
- Dave Abler
- Brian Eppley
- Abigail Houston
- Natalie Norman
- Kathleen Bryer
- Victoria Wu
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Follow Us!
Check us out on social media to get all the latest news, photos, happy ending stories from our PAWS alumni, and more!
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How are we doing?
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