Volunteer Spotlight of the Month

We are so grateful for all our volunteers; we rely heavily on your support to meet our operational needs.We want to take time once a month to extend our thanks to a volunteer who has had a positive impact at Toronto Humane Society based on staff/volunteer feedback and has had an immense love for it ever since. As she puts it, “gardening is in my blood”.

This Month we would like to shine a spotlight on Catherine B.!

When she joined Toronto Humane Society as a volunteer in 2014, Catherine wanted to find a way to help our mission of improving the lives of animals She noticed the long shelf of dirt in the back by the parking lot and she immediately knew how she could help Given her skills in gardening she figured “it’s the one thing that I can do to help [Toronto] Humane Society.” Eventually, when the planter boxes were added to the patio, she happily took on the task of growing and maintaining the plant life there as well.

If you’ve ever been on the patio or walked by the parking lot in the back, you probably noticed the beautiful planter boxes and lush plants and flowers growing out of them On the patio, we have an assortment of lettuces that we feed to our special species, various flowers, trees, shrubbery and, as of recently, pumpkins growing! In the back parking lot, there is a long shelf of flowers and shrubs growing beautifully These incredible plants take a lot of care, time, and love to maintain, and we have a wonderful volunteer to thank for that, Catherine B!

For nearly 9 years Catherine has spent well over 450 hours caring and tending to the plant life at Toronto Humane Society, but her love for gardening did not start here From a very young age, Catherine has been involved with gardening

Catherine’s devotion to gardening is truly inspiring, as is her philosophy behind it “I believe in what [Toronto] Humane Society is doing, and I think that my gardening contributes to the people who work here and the animals themselves.” She could not be more correct in that assessment! However, not only do the staff and animals get to enjoy the beautiful plants and flowers around our building, but they also serve bigger purposes. As Catherine explained, the shrubs help absorb water so that in the event of a rainstorm there is less of a chance of a leak in the building Furthermore, some of the plants attract wildlife to the building, such as monarch butterflies, which is truly incredible When asked what keeps her coming back after all these years, Catherine explained that she is the kind of person that once she gets involved in something will keep coming back for as long as she possibly can, and we are incredibly lucky for that She has been an incredible asset to Toronto Humane Society, and we cannot thank her enough for all of her help. Please join us in celebrating Catherine this month!