New AWL Executive Director Finds Career Change Gratifying
New AWL Executive Director Finds Career Change Gratifying
Posted
Jackie Gorski-jgorski@timesuniononline.com
New AWL Executive Director Finds Career Change GratifyingPIERCETON – After leaving corporate America, Animal Welfare League Executive Director Sally Scott found a job that is more of a vocation.
“I’ve always had an interest in animals and I’ve worked in different corporate positions,” Scott said. “My background is graphic design and visual communications. So when a position at the shelter opened up, I thought it would be a nice change to work somewhere I thought was more of a vocation than a regular job, so doing something like the care of animals and helping people find a forever pet was something I found very fulfilling.”
Scott started as executive director Dec. 26 after being at AWL for nearly three years as an employee, she said. Scott said she applied for the position late last year to replace Katey Wilks Zemen after Wilks Zemen resigned.
She has worked in every area of the shelter.
“When I was first hired, it was to maintain our social media and sort of help with our branding and marketing, creating flyers and brochures for events,” Scott said. “Then we had some staff members move on to other jobs, so we needed a kennel tech, so our director at the time thought it would be a good idea if I cross-trained in that area.”
She has assisted at the front desk with helping customers, processing adoptions and answering the telephone. Scott has helped in the care tech unit, giving vaccines, dosing out medications and examining incoming animals to see if they had any medical needs, Scott said.
She graduated from Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
She said animals are very special and can teach people about such things as empathy.
“And being a voice for them was important,” she said.
Scott said she wanted the job because she felt there’s a lot AWL could do to continue the improvement and growth of the shelter. Currently, AWL has 80 dogs and over 100 cats, having several cats out in foster care. One board member is fostering a litter of puppies and their mother.
“We just moved into this beautiful new building and I’ve always had an interest in animals,” she said, also stating she thinks her background and knowledge allows her take on the position.
“On a day-to-day basis, I make sure that our staff and our pets have everything that they need. I answer the emails and maintain our Facebook page and social media,” Scott said. “I’m also working on grants that can benefit the shelter.”
The grants Scott is working on would allow AWL to raise funding for certain programs the shelter would like to start, and there’s one grant that’s for the donation of pet food to the shelter, she said.
The shelter relies on outside sources to help.
“We rely on the donations from our community to help keep the shelter running,” Scott said. “We pay for our medications and our vaccines, as well as any supplies we may need, surgeries for pets – whether it be spay or neuter” or other procedures the animal may need, Scott said.
She brought up the story of a great dane that had been attacked and needed medical attention as an example of things they pay for. The great dane has since been adopted.
Scott also does a Pets of the Week segment at one of the local radio stations, which features one cat and one dog the shelter is adopting out. For that, Scott said the animals are sort of chosen at random, but she does try to pick an animal that has been at the shelter for a while. She also tries to pick animals with certain quirks.
“I would like to keep moving forward, helping as many pets as possible,” she said, stating she would like to expand the volunteer program the shelter has, which helps with such things as the shelter’s laundry and dishes, socializing the cats and walking the dogs.
“What we’d really like to have is more medical fosters,” Scott said. Those foster owners would take in animals who “would not do well in a shelter environment.”
For more information about AWL, to learn about pets available for adoption or to volunteer, visit awlwarsaw.com.
