Nomination letter for Rose Gates
Angelcat Haven, Inc. volunteer
Submitted by: Angela Frankudakis, President, Angelcat
Haven, Inc.
Rose
Gates exemplifies the true definition of a volunteer.
She is not a “Chief” but a true “Indian”
and the common phrases out of her mouth are “what
can I do to help” and “And tell me what needs
to be done”.
I met Rose 7 years ago while volunteering
at our town shelter. When I left volunteering in September
of 2006 for a break our friendship continued. Within a
month, I received a call from the vet techs I had made
friends with. They were asking for help. The local shelter
was refusing to take 2 cats that were left at the vet,
and unless I helped, they would be put to sleep. So, I
took them in to care for them, and to find them new homes.
I called Rose and said “Help” and her comment
back was “What do you need me to do”. These
2 cats were the beginning of Angelcat Haven, Inc. Feline
Rescue.
Rose was by my side at the very start of
Angelcat Haven. In the beginning she still volunteered
one night at the town shelter and spent the other nights
helping me clean, and we talked about how to start a non
profit organization. While she cleaned I talked about
all that we needed to get done. Armed with a to-do list,
she started emailing. She made contact with friends and
volunteers to see if they could spare sometime to help
with Angelcat Haven. Her passion for the cats and her
excitement to be involved with an organization that she
saw could truly make a difference was her driving force.
In the beginning she reached out to 2 people
with exceptional talents to come volunteer with us. One
was Antoinette Shangraw, a past volunteer at the town
shelter, who could assist with the administrative end
and is currently the Vice President of Angelcat Haven
and helps run most of the fundraising events. The other
was Donna Lacourse, a professional website designer that
was looking for an organization to donate her time and
talents to. Thanks to Rose’s continued contact with
Donna, Angelcat Haven has a top notch website all donated.
Rose drew up our Angelcat Haven logo and spent time with
Donna and myself designing the website.
The tasks that Rose has taken on are endless.
She signed Angelcat Haven up for 3 different adoption
sites, Petfinder, Save-a-pet, and Pets 911. These sites
expose our cats for adoption to the public. She continues
takes all of the pictures and writes the bois of each
cat and posts them on these 3 sites. She signed Angelcat
Haven up for all sorts of volunteer sites looking for
volunteers, including VCRI. She is the volunteer coordinator
and is in charge of training the new volunteers to clean
for the cats nightly. She cleans 2 nights a week and fills
in when someone can not make their shift. She volunteers
for all of our fundraising events, is on the Petco rotation
volunteering once every 6 weeks to set up a table at Petco
and talked to people about Angelcat Haven, posts one of
our cats weekly in the town paper for exposure for adoption
and continues her correspondence with potential volunteers.
So, if you are looking for a true volunteer,
look no further than Rose Gates and hear her say “So
tell me what need to get done”.
