Comments to: Mary Miller mlmiller@uga.edu
Created November 2005
URL= http://www.arches.uga.edu/~mlmiller/project/tylertown/transcripts/volunteers_text.htm
Best Friends on Volunteers
Erin
Nick & Mike
Tour the Loft
FRANCIS: All the volunteers bring a different feeling to the camp, and different skills, different levels of enthusiasm, emotions--all that sort of thing. And that changes all the time. And one of the problems that we encountered to begin with was that that also--that since the thing was somewhat self-organizing in its early phase, you would have real ownership by a volunteer in a particular area, and that volunteer might leave, and then that area would collapse. So you would have boom and bust in these different areas of operation. But each of--so you see how essential something as--you know, the laundry is, or how essential, you know, obviously, animal care is. And if you have--if you don't have continuity, you don't have clear job descriptions, understanding what's needed, it's very easy for things to have to be recreated from scratch, and you go from pillar to post looking for someone to fill in a position. So the volunteers are the essential component of this. But having continuity, in terms of someone who can pass along a job, and making sure that it doesn't just rise and fall on the personality of one individual is really important. And that's something that at the beginning and early stages was impossible to avoid, because it was such an emotional environment, and you were totally dealing with a--it was a self-organized volunteer effort. That's been normalized to a great degree--taken out some of the excitement, but it's much better for the animals.
SILVA: What has been absolutely extraordinary is the fact that whatever has been needed has been provided, whether that's a particular skill or a particular personality, or physical items, or whatever. Just when you get to the point where you think that, you know, things are going to get really, really, really difficult, that item, that quality, that skill lands in camp. Over and over and over again. Just extraordinary.
FRANCIS: Yes, it's been very--quite magical from that point of view. And the commitment and dedication of the volunteers is really humbling. I mean, the amount of work, the energy--just the quality of commitment that comes in with folks is boggling. And I would have never imagined that such a thing could be possible, in terms of the--well, how deeply I've felt moved by people's commitment, their enthusiasm, the skills that they bring, what they've been able to do, the transformation that they've generated. And in a very short time--people come in for a week or two and will become totally essential and will really change things and make a major contribution. And this whole camp as it exists now is an accumulation of those types of effects, of people bringing essential skills and forever changing the way we do things.
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ERIN : So this is my dog Schooner who passed on August 24th, this year, and--which was, I think, four or five days before the hurricane. And I'm doing this in his honor, and he's here with me, and.... I'm from Portland , Oregon . I'm a Realtor by day and animal rescuer day and night. [Laughs.] I came on my own, but I work with a group in Portland, Oregon, called Animal Rescue and Care. I just was so devastated when I saw the images on the television that I just felt compelled to come. And so--it's been an incredible experience here. You can't put it into words. It's everything. It's joy. It's complete despair. Exhaustion. And it's exhilaration. I've met incredible people and incredible dogs. And I haven't been in the cat room yet, because I'm too scared to go in there. I think I'll end up bringing home twenty or thirty of them. So--that's my story, and I'm sticking with it.
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NICK: My name's Nicholas Candelori, and I'm actually here just to help out. Since--actually since we got here, we've actually been taking care of the Heights. The Heights is a section of dogs--it's in the dog section--that we feed, water, keep the cages clean, do upkeep on the cages, and we also have the lovely chickens and ducks. You see them over there.
MIKE: We have that duty.
NICK: The one important thing that we have discussed before is that you--what you're going to see down here is people coming from all over the country. And actually there's been people from Canada . And they're all coming down for a common goal, and that's just to help out these animals.
(Feeding the dogs)
MIKE: Nobody likes those. They have all these treats, and nobody likes them.
NICK: All right. Let me--that's what I forgot. I'll run up and get some.
MIKE: Did you feed the skinny dog yet?
NICK: Yeah, we did--when was that?
MIKE: All right. Onward and upward.
That's a good boy.
Okay. So much for that.
NICK: The list is in my pocket.
We've got time, because we have very few--
You guys were eating it?
MIKE: I didn't think that was regular for human consumption, and not--not that I was eating meat while I was here, just for the record, because I know there's a lot of vegetarians here. I want that to be known.
I know that this guy, coming up here... He'll eat some.
NICK: I would say we get up--we actually try to start by eight, and we're, I would say, on average done around eleven. You know, this one time it went to, like, I think, twelve, twelve-thirty, because we got pulled off for a couple different little things, and then one time we got out around ten-thirty.
We do that, and then we find out if anybody else needs anything. Or they usually come find us, if they have, like, a pressing issue. Then we go on to that, and then we come back and do what we have to do. It works out. I'll be honest. It works out.
We're the ones that are doing that.
We're doing it by gauging....also, like, if they're not eating anything and they're really emaciated, we try to give them more wet food, entice them, try to beef them up a little. And it's working, actually. I've seen it working. We got some we've taken off the list because...
AUSTIN : Are there any dogs we have to syringe feed or anything, or is it...
NICK: No. We don't do any--we don't--we don't administer meds unless one of the med techs comes and asks us to do it.
AUSTIN : Okay.
NICK: Usually they take care of that. All that stuff'll be done--those dogs up by the MASH unit?
MIKE (pulling hose toward kennel): Yeah. This is going to be interesting.
NICK: This dog
OFFSCREEN: Oh, look! Look!
NICK: A couple dogs that have worms.
(Mike sprays hose into dog run. Rottweiler snaps at water spray, trying to "catch" it.)
MIKE: He loves water...
[Barking.]
WOMAN: You get it! You get it!
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NARRATOR: Okay, so we're going up to the loft now. We've got a few people sleeping up here. This is up above the kitchen, so it can be a little noisy, but no noisier than anywhere else. A few air mattresses, so this is really deluxe accommodation for this area. And our very own bathroom. Who could ask for more?
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Last update: December 8, 2005 Comments to: Mary Miller mlmiller@uga.edu Created November 2005 URL= http://www.arches.uga.edu/~mlmiller/project/tylertown/transcripts/volunteers_text.htm |
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