Volunteers are Cool.

Yesterday was my regular day at the Rescue.  My office closed early, so I figured I would take care of one room by myself and leave the others for the rest of the team, which would arrive between 4 and 5pm.  I asked the Karen, Volunteer Director how we were staffed for Thanksgiving Day.  She said that she would be there with one other person, Brett, who is a regular Thursday volunteer.

Unacceptable.

Back in the old days, two people could manage the daily chores.  Sort of.  If I remember the math correctly, we figured that one person could feed, water and clean the cages in 7 hours.  So two would be there for 3 1/2 hours.  Now the place is bigger and there are more birds.  I would say three people is really the minimum.  Four is decent.  Five is good.

Most of the time, though, if one extra person can put in an hour it helps a lot.  So I said I could put in an hour.  Which generally means I will be there for 1 1/2 hours or maybe two.  When I arrived at nine this morning, Karen said that Pat, Jose, Susanna and Bijan were all coming in addition to Brett.  Word got around, it seems.

So I opened all of the rooms.  Uncovering all of the cages, I now know, takes 20 minutes.  The morning meds were already done.  I pulled out all of the dirty water dishes, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher.  I snuggled the killer lovebird in a towel so that Susanna could clean out her cage.  At some point I looked up and I had been there 90 minutes.  Four of the five other volunteers had arrived and were working at a pretty quick clip.

It's nice that no one had to be exhausted before hanging out with their families.