After I graduated from college, I knew I was ready to adopt a dog. After a few months of searching, I finally ended up on Lucky Dog's website and decided to submit an application. Little did I know that decision three years ago would change my life, in more than just one way!

I ended up adopting a 3.5 year old cattle dog named Baby Girl (renamed to Abby, thankfully). She wasn’t so sure of me at first, but now we’re pretty much inseparable. She has been such a rock in my life through many challenging times, and I owe her and Lucky Dog so much for that (not every organization is willing to take a chance on a young, first-time dog owner with a cat who works full-time and lives in an apartment)!

Early last year, I decided I needed to give back to Lucky Dog - to thank them for giving me Abby and to help other dogs find loving homes as well. I filled out the volunteer questionnaire online without much thought, and waited to see if I got a response. Low and behold, I was contacted a few days later about one of the positions I had opted in for - Event Coordinator.

I’ve always been good at coordinating and organizing. My attention to detail is usually so precise it annoys people. On top of that, I spend some free time at work organizing social events for my department. Lucky Dog’s website describes an event coordinator’s role as “[to] assist in coordinating foster, dog and volunteer attendance for adoption events that take place on Saturday or Sunday,” so it sounded like a role that could use those skills.

I attended my first event to shadow in April of last year, and I must say it was a bit overwhelming! Talking to all those potential adopters (and not being able to remember the adoption process, oops), managing a bunch of dogs that are running amok, and the volunteers who are handling those dogs… it was a lot to take in. Thankfully, I never felt alone because Lucky Dog’s awesome event support team (especially our Events Program Manager at the time) was never far away and were always willing to help.

As I started to attend a more events they became a lot easier, and I was eventually able to run the small events all by myself. Unfortunately, I found it difficult to attend many events because of distance, so I only managed to EC at events every once in a while. When Lucky Dog reached out to me about some ways to help with events during the week… how could I say no!

It started out pretty simple - just fill out the provided email template with the information for this weekend’s event, and send it to the volunteers. Yes it does sound easy, but when we have 3+ events in one weekend, and 10 or more individualized emails for each event… let me tell you, it took a long time to fill out that template over and over again!

I knew there had to be a better way, but I couldn’t find any tools online. Well, that’s when I realized I had all the tools I needed right in my head! Why not just build my own tool?

It started small, just a simple program that could fill in a template with the provided information over and over again. Still a lot of copy-pasting, but a lot faster and less painful. Then I added a database, a google drive integration & authentication, and five more templates for other emails I volunteered to send - now that I had the tools to write them, it was a lot easier to take on more responsibility!

As I took over responsibility of sending all event emails each week, I still felt like I could do more. Thankfully, there are always more ways to help at Lucky Dog! Now, I help EC at our large Sunday events with 50+ dogs. I also help manage all event RSVPs and volunteer sign-ups during the week (which I’d like to make more efficient, maybe it’s time to build another tool)!

As the new Events Team lead, I’m looking forward to continuing those responsibilities, and working with Lucky Dog’s awesome Events Program Manager as we continue to make Lucky Dog’s events bigger and better than ever!

So what advice to I have for you? Find out what you’re good at - whether it’s programming, organizing, coordinating, talking to people, managing animals, or social media - put it to good use! Donate your skills to an organization that needs them. You’ll be surprised at how much of a difference you’re able to make, and you’ll probably learn a little something about yourself along the way, too!