Lindsay Roe, who works as the development manager for the Everett Animal Shelter, hopes she can inspire the wider community. In the photo, she’s with Kenzy, one of her dogs.
courtesy
EVERETT — Though you may not be familiar with Lindsay Roe quite yet, you may remember her window-washing friend Bo.
Lindsay and Bo the dog went viral earlier this month, Bo was adopted Feb. 8, and Lindsay is sticking around to help more animals find a home.
A “self-proclaimed animal nut,” Roe is the Development Manager at the Everett Animal Shelter. This role is dedicated solely to exploring new avenues to raise money to support the animals at the shelter. She said: “I feel really lucky that I have made a career out of something that I love to do: supporting animals.”
Roe explained that “before this role was created, the shelter did collect donations; they had a donate button on the website and they had a couple other avenues for donation revenue but there was nobody really thanking these donors, soliciting for support, out there talking to the community on why we need support.”
Roe said that while this is a city-funded job, without donations the shelter couldn’t accomplish everything and fill their special fund called “The Fund for the Animals”: “We are a municipal shelter and we do get funding from adoption fees, license fees and we collect fees from surrounding municipalities for stray animals, but our medical expenses that operate our clinic and pay for our spay and neuter surgeries, vaccines, medicines, anything that our animals need beyond food and shelter comes out of this fund, it’s extremely important when we’re talking about the level of care that we want to provide here and the level of the care that the community expects for these animals.”
The shelter takes in strays from more than 13 jurisdictions, plus from owner surrenders and animal cruelty cases and investigations, so the importance of this fund and providing for these animals is vast. Roe hopes to increase donations in a number of ways. She plans to not just wait for people to give, but make sure she connects with the community to explain why people should give.
The shelter has already made some updates on their website. They now have a monthly newsletter you can have sent to your email to see what’s going on at the shelter and hear of some successful adoption stories.
Roe explained, “We’re growing our kennel sponsor program, so somebody can sponsor a kennel and get updates on who’s residing in that kennel throughout the year. We’re going to implement, hopefully, a monthly giving club soon where people can have an automatic donation taken out of their credit card each month that will go towards the care of the animals. Different fun ways for people to give.”
Roe said there are a number of community events the shelter will either host or be party to that will directly fund or fuel the animals at the shelter with love.
Kitten yoga is coming soon, where a yoga teacher will come teach a class while kittens are roaming about. During the holidays they do a Santa Paws event where people can come and get pictures of their pets with Santa. Mutt Strut will be Saturday, Aug. 8 and is one of the largest dog-friendly events in Snohomish County.
An upcoming event called Pups and Pints will be March 21 at Scuttlebutt Taproom, 3314 Cedar St.: “It will be puppies and adult dogs, probably, and beer. Scuttlebutt will donate a percentage of all the beer sold that day to us and we will be on-site to talk to people about what we do and we’ll have puppies and dogs for them to meet that can be adopted back at the shelter the next day.”
Stay tuned for an open house to allow the community an intimate tour of the shelter to show that, “the animals are really well cared for and it’s a great place to be if you’re a pet in between homes or lost.”
You can find more information about these events on the Everett Animal Shelter’s Facebook (www.facebook.com/Everettanimals/) or their website (www.everettwa.gov/148/Animal-Services). This is also where you can find information on ways to come down and volunteer: “We’ve got volunteers that can walk dogs, that can socialize cats, that can cuddle bunnies, I mean just about anything that you want to do. File paperwork ... You can help in the clinic, that’s a fun volunteer position.”
With all this hope and passion, Lindsay has great plans to make a difference: “We can maintain the work we’re doing, but what goals do the staff and volunteers and the community have for five to ten years from now? It will be fun to watch the shelter grow and continue to build on the programs that benefit the animals, and I think expanding our community partnerships is going to be really important as we move forward.”
