Volunteering at Animal Shelters for 12 year olds?

Question

Hi, I'm twelve years old and live in Glenview, IL. During the summer, I will have nothing to do. I really want to volunteer at an animal shelter or something animal related. But, I have done some researching and found that most of the time, volunteers have to be 18 or older. Can someone please find an animal shelter that is close by and that I can volunteer at, being twelve years old(almost 13). Thanks!

Answer 1

Yes, many shelters do have a age limit of 18 or 16, but there are also many out there that will let you volunteer at a younger age, so don't get discouraged.

What you should do, if you are interested in volunteering (which is a great, wonderful idea), is visit : http://www.petfinder.com/

Scroll down, and on the left it says "Find Animal Welfare Groups".

You can put in your location/zip code and it will provide you with a list of all of the animal rescues and shelters in your area.

Go through the list, call them, visit them, or take a look at their websites to see what their age limit is.

Thats the best way of finding out who you can volunteer with.

By going on Petfinder, I have found many shelters/rescues that I didn't even know were in my area.

http://www.volunteermatch.org/ is also a great website for finding shelters and organizations to volunteer with and it will show you when you search which shelters are teen friendly.

Also, I find shelters to have a more strict policy and age limit. Rescues, who work off of foster homes (homes that take in animals until they get adopted), are more lenient about the age limit.

So if you are not finding any good shelters, look at rescues.  Sometimes petstores like Petsmart and Petco have info about your local rescues(but you will also find them on petfinder and volunteermatch).

It was difficult for me to find a shelter to volunteer with when I was your age, I had to look for a couple of months until I finally found a shelter that would let me volunteer(the age limit was 13 and over w/ parent supervision). It worked out great!

It was nice spending more time with my mom.

Volunteering at a shelter is a lot of fun, but some people sometimes have bad experiences and don't want to volunteer because they have been to a bad, high kill shelter. Not all shelters are high kill and if you volunteer with one shelter and have a bad experience that doesn't mean you should stop. Just keep looking for the animal organization that suits you because they are all different. Some will let you play with the animals, and some might want you to do the dirty work, like cleaning up p**p, vomit, laundry, etc.

Just remember to never give up on your search, keep trying, there are MANY MANY shelters and rescues out there and they ALL need your help.

Also, a GREAT website that could help you a lot is http://www.humaneteen.org/?q=forum

The Humane Teen (one of the Humane Society of the United State's programs) website has great suggestion on how teens can help animals (volunteering, fundraising, clubs,..etc.). You can even get advice and help from other teens on the message board or the Humane Advisory Board members. I think that this website would help you so much! Check it out. :)

Good luck!

Answer 2

You're too young.  The closest shelter is Heartland on Milwaukee Rd.  The minimum age to volunteer is for many places, 16.  Glenbrook Hospital requires you to be 15 to volunteer there.