Community: A Feeling of Fellowship with RedRover Responders

By Devon Krusko, Field Services and Community Programs Manager

two women cutting a wire fence While our official Community Programs deployments are just two years old, the impact the work has had on communities, people, and animals has been far-reaching. Just this fall we partnered with three different organizations to improve the quality of life for both people and pets.

In early September we traveled to our second deployment with the Parker Project on the Navajo Reservation. A small but mighty team, the Parker Project has the incredible Alex Mays leading the way as the Director (and only staff member!) and her 20+ volunteers. The Parker Project is typically providing a spay/neuter and vaccine clinic each month and also provides door-to-door wellness services in the community with their Wellness Waggin’. Myself and eight volunteers traveled to Tuba City, Arizona to assist with the clinic and kick off our first Unchaining program for the Coalmine Canyon Chapter on the reservation. We built safe enclosures and provided new dog houses and enrichment for over 20 dogs, and our team worked to support specific roles at the spay/neuter and vaccine clinic to serve over 200 animals!

We then headed to our first deployment with a new partner, PAWS of Northeast Louisiana at the end of the month. PAWS is entirely volunteer run and provides services to their community including spay/neuter vouchers, a rescue and adoption program, pet tags, and pet therapy/humane education programs. We worked together to provide a two-day event that offered free wellness exams, vaccines, flea/tick prevention, and pet food. The response and need for these services was so overwhelming that we had to shut down early for the second day! Over 500 animals came to the event and we look forward to providing additional services in 2024.

Dog Aide, located in Detroit, Michigan, was one of our first Community Program partners and we were honored to head back for another weekend to assist with their Operation Freedom program – unchaining outdoor dogs and providing them with a safe enclosure, enrichment, wellness services, dog food, and monthly support. RedRover is proud to sponsor a portion of the kennels, and we bring a group of volunteers to assist with building them. As always, we so loved meeting the very grateful families and their beloved pups!

Community is everything in this work. Collaborating, learning, and supporting the work of those who are already actively building up local efforts is what our Community Program partnerships are all about. We were incredibly proud to support three different organizations this fall, all with the same goal of providing much-needed services in areas where there aren’t systems in place to support pets and their people. We look forward to our continued work with these inspiring organizations in 2024!