First Assignment

So my first assignment at the Zoo was a birthday party for a 3 year old. I was assisting one other volunteer and a Zoo staff member. One thing I noticed was that the staff members are VERY appreciative of our help. I was told by the other volunteer that this was the biggest birthday party all year and that it was four hours long and the normal parties are 1.5 hours tops. That morning I hurt my foot and was limping very bad and I was thinking this is going to suck. 

We got everything set up and I tried on my fancy Zoo volunteer vest.

The party arrived and I started to feel a bit nervous. I wanted to make sure that I was doing my part, after all this four hour party had to cost a pretty penny. I am not the type that just stands around and smiles but I figured I had better start faking it. I don't want to be known as the first volunteer to make the birthday kid cry during his party.

So the Zoo staff person I was working with demonstrated three animals, Hedgehog, Hissing Cockroach and a Box Turtle. She did a very good job speaking briefly about the animals and then allowing the children to touch them as we followed behind squirting tons of hand sanitizer on everything that moved :) 

Time for cake and ice cream the cake was a Great White shark and it was red velvet, I don't the mommy planned it that way but when the Zoo staff member cut the shark part of the cake the red velvet made it appear that the shark was bleeding and ALL the kids wanted a piece of the shark.

I also was able to run the air brush tattoo machine and was able to give all the kids tattoos of four different kind of animals. The boys loved the turtle and the monkey the girls picked the dolphin and butterfly ...typical :)

So the kid opened all his presents and the party was winding down the parents thanked us and said that it was wonderful so I assume that we did a good job.

The Zoo staff member I worked with asked if this was my first party I said this is my first anything and she said that for my first time I did an excellent job and that she hopes I come back to help again.

In closing, even though I did not get to work with animals I did not get to do typical zoo stuff. I could tell how much those kids loved just the three animals that were displayed. Something as simple as that could inspire one of them to be our future conversationalist or animal doctor, zoo director. Yes, I could have had a part in that :)