Category: Volunteer

Volunteering at the Animal Rescue League of Des Moines (ARL) is always refreshing. You are always assigned new tasks. This week, we get to take apart the cages at the Clowder House (a housing for cats that are not ready for adoption) to “refresh” them. We would unscrew the cages, spray out any cat litter or debris trapped between the separation walls and provide the cages with a deep sanitizing with ringworm disinfectant solution. Based on the debris and stain we had to scrub, this may have been done every few years. It is a much needed procedure. We are excited that new cats will get to stay in a cleaner environment.

Today at the ARL (Animal Rescue League), we got to work at the adoption area. We cleaned the kennels and litter boxes, and fed the cats. Sometimes the kids are so focused on getting the work done, they would forget to play with the cats. Cats are such social animals, like humans. We put so much effort in fulfilling their basic needs that we sometimes forgot to address their social and emotional needs. We see that in our cats at home. They can go through feelings of anxiety and depression when their “friend” is away.

The kids have been doing this for a couple of years, and are very well-versed in the operations at ARL. They are able to see through the tasks independently. For instance, after taking care of the cats, they would clean and mop the area. They would know where to get the equipment and how to safely dispense the chemicals for sanitizing the floor. The task they are unable to do independently is operating the trash compactor, as it is a safety requirement that an adult has to be present to operate that machinery.

We worked at the Clowder House at the Animal Rescue League (ARL) this morning. We have been working at the Clowder House since we started volunteering. It is a 2-story cat housing unit built in 2017 to provide additional space for long term housing for cats who are not ready for adoption. Volunteers have to receive special training to work here as they may be dealing with cats with behavioral issues. While there may be more challenges working with cats at the Clowder House than the adoption area (taking precautions not to get bitten or scratched), we also learned that much of what affected the cats’ behavior come from their unpleasant past experiences (being abused or neglected, living in feces-filled homes etc). Thanks to the caring staff and volunteers, some of the cats do develop trust and become calmer over time, and they are moved to the adoption area.

These week we were cleaning a section of Prairie Ridge park and an area around Centennial High School. It is probably a good sign that Prairie Ridge was actually pretty clean and didn’t have a lot of trash to pick up. The area around Centennial had a significant amount of trash and broken glass near the parking lot, so we were able to make a bigger impact there.

This week’s clean-up was around Promenade Park. This area was recently used for the town’s fireworks display and Summerfest. Some of the taller grass and tree areas were definitely in need of cleaning. If we were competing by weight, Devon probably would have won due to the complete brick that he found.

This week, we are cleaning the trail around DMACC Lake. We were excited to be joined by several children and families from my piano studio. Many of the children do not know each other well and one way to relieve performing anxiety during recitals is knowing you have a friend in the audience. So we paired up the children as well as the parents during this clean-up, giving them a mission, on top of cleaning up the park, to find out what they have in common with each other.

We are very thankful for the children and their families taking their time to join us this evening making our city cleaner.

We conducted our Summer City Clean-up in Georgetown Park today. This was three days after the 4th of July. We were surprised by the amount of fireworks remnants found in the park. We spent an hour picking them up, and we were not even half way through the park. We decided to return on Saturday morning to continue our clean-up.

While we were excited to have our bags filled, it felt bittersweet as it makes us question why our fellow residents were littering our parks. Our clean-up activities proved to be an enlightening experience. As on days where we don’t find much trash, we may feel uneventful, while we should be feeling grateful that our city is clean with the help of our responsible residents.

Our Summer City Clean-up brought us to Lakeshore Drive this week. Most of the trash were found in and near the pond. We hope the ducks and frogs were happier with a cleaner pond.

This summer, we decided to initiate a program to clean up our city every week. Our Summer City Clean-up begins today along the trail on North Ankeny Boulevard. While the trail was quite clear, there were lots of trash along the road. It was also very kind that the garbage man had offered to take our trash.