Are you here looking for information about our Skillbridge Program?
Thank you for visiting our website to learn more about our Employment Skills Training Program offered as a partner with the DoD Skillbridge Office! We currently offer two locations: Daytona Beach Florida and Sumter South Carolina. Each offer a unique volunteer opportunity which will prepare you for a career in the animal care field to include shelter animal care, clinical assistant, boarding, and many other related jobs available throughout the United States.
Let us tell you about the uniqueness of each program:
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Sumter, SC - Primarily cat focused. Our volunteers in Sumter are involved in many aspects of rescue to include Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, and Return of feral community cats, pulling small kittens from colonies and taming and caring for them until adoptable, and adoption events in the area. Additionally, these volunteers do fundraisers, adoption screening, social media, and all the other administrative items necessary to get the job done. This means a lot of cat care, a lot of driving cats to and from appointments, a lot of loving on kittens. There's photos to take, data to enter on websites and adoption records to maintain and archive. Spay and neuter statuses to track, and unfortunately returns to deal with. The exposure to dog care is sporatic and we rely on other local organizations to provide those opportunities when time allows.
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Daytona Beach, FL - Our organizational partners in the Daytona Beach area currently include three options: 1) A like-minded animal rescue/shelter who cares for cats and dogs and has an on-site vet. They not only care for and find adopters for cats and dogs, but they also conduct community low cost clinic hours, training events, adoption events, and perform their own spay and neuters on the shelter animals. The positions learned here also include clinic management and shelter management software from an administrative office manager standpoint. This is a very popular and well run shelter who rarely has full time staff openings, but the training received will prepare you to work in a variety of roles within the animal care field. 2) A county run animal shelter who offers all of the same training as listed above. Additionally, this facility holds classes for the county college's vet tech program on site, so they have all the cool tools to use in house! 3) A nonprofit spay and neuter clinic who performs the intake, prep, surgery, recovery, and check out of dogs and cats 4 to 5 days a week. Members learn quickly the hard work that goes on behind the scenes after the pet owner walks back to their car after drop off!
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If you are interested in applying for the training program, email us @
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Also, go start your rabies vaccine! The immunization clinic should have it on hand and last time we checked it was a 2 or 3 shot series given over a few months time. We don't think you will be exposed, but better vaccinated than not vaccinated!
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Frequently Asked Questions:
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1. Is lodging available - No. Lodging is your responsibility. There may be other members in the program willing to share a rented home, but be prepared for your housing to cost you.
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2. How much will I work - You will be assigned duty hours of 40 hours per week, and may not get all holidays and family days you may be used to having on active duty. A combination some weeks will include virtual assigments and sending weekly summaries so your training can be tracked and documented.
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3. Will I work weekends - Yes. Be prepared to work some later evenings and some weekends. The animals need care and that's what rescue is about - the animals in our care. We also schedule and particpate in adoption events every weekend with the rare weekend off. Most of our volunteers (yes, unpaid volunteers) work a full time job in addition to volunteering their homes and time to the animals who need them. We expect less of you, but you should be prepared for 40 hour weeks and a flexible schedule.
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We are adding to this often.