In New Haven, Connecticut sites we have used include: WalMart, Whole Foods, Agway, a local produce market, breweries, Lowe's, banks, art festivals (including ones we created), pet grooming salons, gyms, a Chinese Lunar Year Parade/festival, Barbecue restaurants , an outlet mall, orchards, baseball games, a furniture store, an Equine Rescue and a Dessert/Appetizer Crawl created for us by the Shops @ Yale. We were invited to a Yale football game for an adoption day, but we had already committed to another event--a vintage clothing festival, which was canceled due to the weather. Basically, if you can find an animal lover who works in one of these places you can have an event there and many times they will raise money for you as well. If you have to go through corporate it is a lot more difficult. We have partnered with North Shore League America's off site adoption program which provides us with a very colorful transport van, so there are many businesses who wish to include us or even tailor an event for us. It's a very fun draw for them. Again, if you find animal lovers you will be able to pick and choose what sites fit your requirements best. We have gone to several Petco locations for many years, but recently have had difficulty with the PetcoLove folks. Of course, as many have mentioned , most of the shoppers at these stores already have pets, so other sites allow us to reach out to new potential adopters. Wherever we go it's a fun day out for the animals and volunteers and a chance to reach out and educate some people who would possibly not visit our shelter. It's great PR!
------------------------------
Anna Schildroth
Robin I. Kroogman New Haven Animal Shelter
CTChair, Humane Commission
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 08-17-2024 07:00 AM
From: Angellee Vincent
Subject: Adoption event locations?
Hey!
So I'm the Volunteers & Events Coordinator for my animal shelter in Grand Prairie, TX. I've been the event's coordinator here for 10 years now so we've kinda been through a lot of it. More recently I've gone from (before having my son) to doing events EVERY weekend, Sat & Sun, 52 weeks a year. My team consists of me and one - two part time interns. Between covid and having my son I had to find a better work life balance. Then I got a new supervisor who wanted me to focus on scaling back events in general from just doing events to be doing events to going to quality events and also hosting different events at our facility to bring more people in.
It's a little hard to make suggestions since I unfortunately do not know your area at all... BUT I can let you know the various things we've done over the years and see if any of it would be doable!
When I started we were ONLY going to the citys Farmers Market and our volunteers would go to Petsmart/Petco.
That grew and we branched out a bit and tried Tractor Supply Co, Hollywood Feed, and Pet Supplies Plus.
We did puppy and kitten yoga which got us into breweries (these have turned out to be a big hit at the animal friendly ones) and other farmers markets as well as hosting the events at our own facility that brought in new faces.
We have Paws For Reading where the kids come and read to the animals.
We have driven as far as 2 hours away for a larger event where it was multiple rescues and shelters. We started going to any and all BIG festivals we could get into! So we currently go annually to the North Texas Irish Festival, Mansfields Pickle Parade and Grand Prairies Main St Fest, Dallas Pride. Those average us anywhere from 10-20 adoptions for the day/weekend. My current goal is to focus on more large scale events/festivals like this in surrounding areas as we get so much more awareness of our facility.
I started a yearly Birthday Bash last year, when our facility turned 20. We had about 70 vendors on site, food trucks, bounce houses and 10 other shelters/rescues on site with adoptable animals as well as a silent auction. Our 21st bday bash is coming up in Sept! I had a WHOLE big plan for it but it got shot down since we're under the PD department lol It was going to be family friendly during the day then switch over at night with alcohol vendors and a big bubble/foam glow party with dj! :(
We started Kids Night Out where once a month we have the kids come by after hours for pizza, crafts, puppy/kitty play time and a movie and then their parents pick them up.
Another thing you can do is reach out to local vet offices and ask to house adoptable kittens in those 3 tier cages in their lobby! We did a lot of adoption during kitten season with that.
Sorry my brain is kind of all over the place trying to remember all the different things we've done/tried.
I say try anything once. If it doesnt work out cool, move on or who knows it could end up being something that turns out great.
Good luck!
------------------------------
Angellee Vincent
Volunteer & Events Coordinator
Grand Prairie Animal Services
Grand Prairie, TX
www.gptx.org/paws
Original Message:
Sent: 08-12-2024 05:38 PM
From: Jori Waldron
Subject: Adoption event locations?
We're looking for new places to hold adoption events besides pet stores. We have a ton of kittens that no one is adopting, so we feel we need to branch out. Normally, we spend a few hours on a Saturday at a Petsmart or local pet store, but lately we've had no luck. Any ideas
#FosterPrograms
------------------------------
Jori Waldron
Volunteer
Feral Feline Project
IL
------------------------------