This is a story about a woman named Donna. We know almost nothing about her. But we know she is a hero.
We've never met Donna. We do know she has a poodle. We don't know what her poodle looks like, just that he's lucky to have a mom like Donna. Since we don't know what her poodle looks like, we'll use a picture of Charro, who just arrived here, instead.
We know that Donna lives in a town in Georgia. We don't really know anything about the town except it that there is a woman with a big heart and wonderful sewing skills who lives there.
One day our mail truck showed up with a package addressed to us from Georgia. In the package was several beautiful, hand sewn blankets and note from Donna. She makes these blankets for different shelters and sends her packages full of love across the country to help homeless dogs and cats.
We think Donna is amazing.
So do these bunnies who are recovering from their spay/neuter surgery under her blankets.
This momma and babies that arrived here yesterday think she's pretty awesome too.
They're waiting for their foster family to show up but in the meantime Donna's blanket made a baby's first vet visit a little more comfortable.
Buddy, our newest office kitty, is also a fan of Donna's blankets.
He's hanging out in our admin area until he finds his new home. We don't think it will take long. He's pretty stinkin' cute.
While the animals who use her special blankets love Donna, we love her too.
There's really no such thing as 'animal work'. Animal work - and animal issues - are people issues. While we meet so many fantastic animals, we also meet a lot of awesome people. While we get to make animals happy (like Donna did with her blankets) we also get to make people happy. Happy like this little boy was happy when his family adopted their cat:
Because animals make people's lives better.
And people, like Donna, make animals lives better. It's a give and take.
What makes our lives better? Knowing that somewhere in Georgia is a very nice woman busily making blankets to comfort homeless animals. Not because she knows the animals personally but just because she knows they need comfort and wants to help.
Every day we see so many heroic acts: a Facebook group that makes and sends out dog toys to shelters. A guy who is late to work because he found a kitten in the parking lot and wants to make sure it gets to safety. Pretty much each and every one of our volunteers. A woman who drove a homeless family to our facility so they could get their beloved dog vaccinated.
And we see how those acts change lives, both human and animal. We see the wagging tails:
But we also see the people, who don't have tails to wag but show us in other ways they're happy:
We just wanted to take a minute to thank Donna and thank all the other Donnas who take time out to make a life better. You are changing the world.