Volunteer

Requirements 

At this time we only have space available on Sundays. If you are not available for an open position, we will place you on our waitlist. It could be Spring 2025 before we begin adding additional volunteers to other days of the week. 

Volunteering at Sarvey Wildlife Care Center:  Our volunteers are extremely important to us. As a non profit organization, we could not do this without the support of our volunteer staff. During the peak season (April to September), we need many volunteers each week to keep up with the work and patient load. We depend on donations and therefore have only a small paid staff. Wildlife rehabilitation is not funded by the state or federal government. Therefore, your tax deductible donations and volunteer time are critical to our success. 

Please read this page for important information about our volunteer opportunities.  NOTE: Minimum age for volunteers is 18. 

Volunteers are asked to commit to a weekly schedule and complete a 4 hours shift from 8:00 a.m. to noon. We are here 7 days a week. Please indicate which day/s of the week work best for your schedule. 

We will train you to do a variety of tasks. Volunteers are responsible for many things that are critical to assisting in our rehabilitation efforts. Everyday assistance is needed with cleaning and sanitizing enclosures and other areas, washing dishes, doing laundry, and preparing food for our resident animals and patients. Because of the training required, we ask volunteers to commit to the busy season, but it is our hope you will love it as much as we do and stay season to season! 

Skills

You do not need experience with animals. You will be trained to clean our enclosures and prepare diets.  You must be able to work with all types of people and maintain a professional demeanor at all times. You must be able to follow directions, and take correction as needed. These things are critical to your safety and the well being of our animal patients. 

Other Requirements

The work at our facility is physically demanding. It is essential that volunteers can bend, squat, stand for significant periods of time, hear if an animal is in distress or otherwise could pose a threat, communicate effectively and follow directions (both written and oral), show good judgment, and can remain calm in stressful situations. Exposure to zoonotic diseases is a risk, so it is not recommended that individuals with compromised immune system volunteer. We recommend you have an up to date tetanus booster. You must have had a COVID vaccination and maintain annual booster/s in accordance with CDC suggestions based on your age and risk level. We work with many COVID sensitive species and this is for the safety of our staff, interns, volunteers, and patients. 

We do not accept volunteers needing to do court ordered community service. We require a criminal background check be completed as part of the onboarding process. This will include a national criminal background check and sex offenders registry search. To offset the cost associated with this background check, volunteer applicants will be asked to donate $30 to cover the expense as part of the registration process and in exchange will be receiving a volunteer t-shirt, if you are accepted. 

Our Work

Our mission is to rehabilitate wild animals, so they may be released back into their natural habitats. Some volunteers come and expect to "interact" with the animals but, this is not allowed. We do whatever we can to limit our interactions with the patients at the center. For their safety, it is best to keep wild animals, wild. Strict guidelines established by the state and federal government regulate the work we do.

Apply Today - Applicants must complete our online volunteer form and once the initial review has been completed, you will receive details on the next steps to complete forms online, register for your background check, and pay the donation fee to cover costs. APPLICATION LINK