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 :)  

Welcome

So this is a blog about my time as a Zoo volunteer. On August 27th and 28th I attended Zoo U for the Denver Zoo. This was a two day training class for my new volunteer position at the Denver Zoo.

During these two days of training we were given information needed for the job ahead of us but I believe that it is more so intended for us to realize the importance of our part of the success of the Zoo and the well being of the animals inside and outside of the Zoo gates. 

Just in two short days I was able to understand just how important the zoo and other zoos are to the animal world. Teaching and inspiring the public to appreciate and to care about animals that are becoming endangered not because as humans we do not care about them but because we are just not educated about how we affect their world.

We were given a book the first day of training it's a beautiful book with a lot of history about the Denver Zoo. I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book if you are interested in the Denver Zoo even just a little bit.   

Why did I decide to volunteer? Well I have to admit I was thinking what a great way to get close to the animals and see the zoo behind the scenes. Little did I know that I may never get to be closer to an animal than the average public nor will I be given a paid position at the Denver Zoo.  So why then do people keep coming back to give their time?  Because once they get there they realize what kind of impact they can make and that without touching these fantastic animals they can change the lives of them for the better with one or two short hours of their time.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog there will be many more entries and I hope I don't bore you all to death. This is my first shot at something like this so here goes nothing.