March 2011.  Sometimes the road to volunteering at the Humane Society isn’t always a direct route.  Such is the case for Terri Murphy.  Terri is no stranger to volunteering, she has been actively volunteering in the community for years.  Her daughter, Amanda, is a senior at South Forsyth High School.  In order for her to earn her volunteer hours for Beta Club and National Honor Society last year, she chose to spend time at our shelter socializing the pets.

When Amanda’s father didn’t go up to the shelter with her, her mother, Terri did.  During one of the visits, Terri offered to help with any office or admin work if it was needed.  It was music to ours ears!

Most volunteers want to spend time directly with the pets, which is great, but there are also the less exciting volunteer tasks that are just as meaningful.  Our Director asked Terri if she’d be willing to help with tracking our veterinary expenses in a database.  This can be quite confusing because we work with several veterinarians and have to deal with all sorts of medicines and procedures that would be Greek to most people. It is the largest expense in our budget, so it’s really important to break down how we are spending our money.  By tracking these expenses, we are able to see places for savings, use different vets for less expensive procedures, and target funds.

Terri jumped right in and has been helping us track our vet expenses ever since.  Every month she does through the vet invoices, for each pet and enters them into a database format.  She also helped at the Humane Society of Forsyth County Thrift Store with the enormous task of sorting and organizing all of the wonderful donations that we received prior to our store opening this past October.    Terri’s family grew last May, when they adopted two lab mix puppies from our adoption program.  The two ‘puppies’, Bear and Nicki, have since grown and are now 65 pounds each and so grateful to be blessed with such a loving forever home.

Terri has taken on a very unglamorous task that is behind the scenes, but she has made a huge difference.  We are so grateful for her willingness to help. That is why Terri Murphy is our Volunteer Spotlight this month!

You may not see Terri around the shelter but we hope you will join us in thanking her for all she does for the HSFC.

If you have a little free time and a lot of love in your heart, you could help us save even more animals.  Other administrative tasks that you can do from home include: Online calendar posting, website support, donation acknowledgments, Spay/neuter database creation...   To get involved is easy…just contact us at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or come to volunteer orientation (see Calendar of Events for dates).

Article by Yvette Matzek, Volunteer Chairperson