The next CAPCA service project is at PAWS (http://www.pawschicago.org/) on Tuesday, June 5th from 4-7pm. PAWS is Chicago’s largest no kill humane organization. Below is the information and email me if you’d like to join us so that I can send you a waiver (katmobriengmailcom).  Also, don’t forget to buy your Founder’s Day tickets!

Where do we volunteer? At the PAWS Chicago Adoption Center located at 1997 N. Clybourn Avenue (west Lincoln Park neighborhood). The center is a 13,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility dedicated to the adoption of Chicago’s homeless animals. It is cage-free; the only cage-free facility in the Midwest. Daily we have between 35-50 dogs in the 25 dog rooms and 50-70 cats in the 10 cat rooms . Since the Center opened in September 2007, over 15,000 dogs and cats have found forever homes.

What can we expect from the Volunteer Experience? We start the volunteer experience with a brief orientation to PAWS Chicago, the Adoption Center and the role of the visiting volunteer in Dog Town and Kitty City. Visiting volunteers play a key role in animal socialization (playing, brushing, petting), some light cleaning (for example, we have lots of glass, Windex and paper towels; kitchen and/or laundry duty). Each volunteer gets to choose if they want to work with dogs, cats or both. We also can have an administrative project or 2 available if there are visiting volunteers who don’t want animal contact (please let us know how many people would like to help out with projects so we can set up the work ahead of time).

What should we wear? Because you will have animal contact you must wear the following for practical reasons and safety purposes.

- All clothing should be washable
- Rubber-soled, closed toe shoes/sneakers (a MUST, inappropriate footwear, no animal contact)- Long pants: – Long sleeved-shirts (requested, not required) – Avoid wearing perfume/cologne as some pets react negatively to new odors and avoid wearing dangling jewelry

You also get to wear a PAWS Chicago volunteer apron and name tag.

Parking/Transportation: During the day street parking is typically available, particularly on the side streets (just pay close attention to the signs). Do NOT park in the strip mall across from the Center — there is a very diligent towing service. In the evenings (starting at 5 pm) we have free use of the Anixter Center’s parking lot, which is about a block away.

Public Transportation is a viable option. It takes me 7 minutes to walk from the Armitage stop of the CTA’s Brown Line and the #73 Armitage bus (CTA) stops at the el station and our corner. We also are a doable walk to/from the Metra’s Clybourn station and the CTA Red Line North/Clybourn stop.

Anything else? Each volunteer is required to sign a waiver of liability. We ask that each volunteer read and sign the waiver prior to coming to the Center; [please bring the signed waiver with you as it will be collected at the beginning of the event.