Greetings MaxFund Volunteers!
If your newsletter doesn't look pretty, with cool graphics and things, check out http://www.maxfundvolunteers.org/newsletters/newsletter0210.html

BIG DOG ROOM QUARANTINE - Unfortunately kennel cough has struck the big dog room again. Effective immediately, the big dog room is under complete quarantine. To make sure that unhealthy dogs aren't adopted out or even visited by adopters, and to keep the cough from spreading within the shelter, all volunteers are asked to avoid the big dog room (and exposure to small dog room is limited) until further notice! In the meantime, please send your best wishes to the dogs for a speedy recovery because nobody likes to be sick!

Animal Rescue Site $25,000 contest is back! - The Animal Rescue site provides food for animals in shelters across America through ad revenues from people clicking on the site, and their $25,000 contest is back! We have won the state of Colorado prize 2 of the 3 times (a $1000 prize!) but we'd love to win AMERICA'S favorite shelter. All you have to do is visit www.theanimalrescuesite.com and click the link, then select MaxFund and your vote will get counted! You can vote once a day so be sure to keep coming back and voting every day!

Denver Center for the Performing Arts Adoption Events at the "Legally Blonde" and "When Tang Met Laika" showss February 6th, 7th, 13th, 20th and 27th 1pm-8pm

PetsMart National Adoption Weekend Event at the University Hills PetsMart February 12th-14th

Chili Cookoff at the Celtic Tavern February 28th! We can use some volunteers to help with the event but we also need participants to come and sample the chili, as well as participants to enter your own chili into the contest!

Some of the things we can use more volunteers for currently. For more detailed information click the applicable links or just visit the Volunteer Opportunities page!

Mobile Adoption Location Coordinators - Helping with a specific (or multiple) locations to make sure mobile adoptions are scheduled properly and run smoothly!
Champs Program - CHAMPS program is our dog training program, and we are currently looking for a new trainer! If you are interested, please visit the Volunteer Opportunities Page for more details.
Volunteer Mentors - Assisting new volunteers to get comfortable with the process and with the shelter. We can always use more mentors, the more people there is to help the newer volunteers the better! You must have the experience to feel comfortable with what you are doing at the shelter and be able to pass their experience along to others.
Foster Families - We are always looking to add more foster families to help get some of MaxFund's animals out of the shelter and transition into adoptable status! We are especially looking for families able to provide foster homes for cats! One thing we are always looking for is people who can take dogs but don't currently have dogs, as well as families who can take cats, but don't currently have cats for some of our animals that don't play well with others.

http://www.maxfundvolunteers.org/foster.html

Each month we highlight a few of our furries in need of a foster home, visit the Foster Family Page for the full list! If you are interested in helping out with foster care, please contact Donna.

Foster Homes Needed, especially for cats! - We are in desperate need of more foster homes for dogs and cats, but ESPECIALLY for cats! Cat fostering is one way volunteers can help out the shelter animals and we have many looking for homes! Even fi we don't have a compatable home for you right now we always need several fosters on standby should the need arise. If you are not able to foster a cat or dog at this time, perhaps you know of other animal lovers who may be interested? Think about your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, etc. Fosters don't need to go through the whole volunteer orientation process, just an application and interview process to make sure they are a good fit! For more information about the process, visit the Foster Family Page or contact our Foster Coordinator Donna Ryan at fosters@maxfundvolunteers.org or 303-332-7276 to learn more.

In case you missed it, please see the following link for an article from USA Today featuring MaxFund's own Tami Tanoue regarding hospice fostering. USA Today Link

	Heidi - Heidi loves petting but is scared of other cats and so stays in her cage. With her lack of exercise and appetite she's put on a lot of weight. She needs a break from the shelter and also some exercise before her weight turns into a medical issue!
	Millie - While Millie loves winning over hearts at the shelter, she'd love a peaceful home as well. She is a special needs dog for sure, but would be a great addition if you had some time for her!
	Buster Grey - Buster Grey has been at MaxFund since 2004. He's shy and scared and needs a quiet home to live out his days and to help him become more socialized.
	Reuben - Reuben is a powerful dog who is working on his manners and training, but would benefit significantly from being in a home environment instead of the shelter!
	Teddie - Teddie has spent 4 of her 6 years in life at the MaxFund. She is getting friendlier, but still tends to not get along with other cats and is getting stressed. Best guess is once she gets into a home, she will experience a complete transformation like Cookie and Princess have!

Volunteer of the Month - The MaxFund greatly appreciates all volunteers, and we are so thankful to all of you who take time out of your lives to help our cats and dogs. We implemented the Volunteer of the Month award so we can honor those volunteers who go above and beyond. We received some great nominations, and February's Volunteer of the month is Kathy Kelly-Weston.

Kathy is one of the regular large dog walkers for MaxFund. She walks the dogs just about every day, which is especially important during the week when MaxFund is short on volunteers. She is one of the first to help the new dogs that come to Maxfund, and she gives them love and reassurance. Many of these dogs are housed in the shed, and she makes sure they are walked and made to feel welcomed. She walks some of the more difficult dogs and they sense her calmness. In addition to walking dogs during the week and occasionally on weekends, she also escorted one of the dogs to Puttin on the Max this year.
Kathy helps observe the new dogs and pass information along to the bio writers, and her observations show how much she loves each and every one of them and what their unique and beautiful traits are. She gets to know the dogs likes, dislikes, and temperament and is very instrumental in passing this information along. If she sees a change in a dog's behavior, she will be sure the people who write the bios know of the behavior change.
Kathy has a great attitude and a great love for the MaxFund dogs. She also is quick to help other volunteers when needed, and has recently taken on the responsibility of becoming a Volunteer Mentor, helping volunteers by giving them many helpful tips on dogs and helping them get comfortable with walking the dogs.
Thank you Kelly for all your love and dedication. The dogs thank you too!

If you are interested in nominating a fellow volunteer for volunteer of the month, please visit the Volunteer of the Month page, and jump to the bottom of the page for nomination information. Volunteers of the month not only get the "award" of being in the newsletter and on the webpage, their name on volunteer of the month plaque at the shelter (currently being updated) but also receive this cool gold-plated lapel pin (lapel pin not shown actual size)

These are a few different ways you can help MaxFund, aside from volunteering your time... by raising funds and awareness! More detailed information can be found on the Other Ways to Help page or by clicking on each item!

Set up a fundraising page on firstgiving.com! Create your own webpage where friends and family can make donations to MaxFund through you! a great way to raise funds for special occasions like birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, or for no reason at all!

escrip.com automatic fundraiser Register your credit card with this organization and purchases made at hundreds of participating organizations will result in automatic donations to MaxFund by those companies!	MaxFunds Online Store! A lot of great items including the Deluxe Stainless Steel/Acrylic Coffee mugs, polycarbon water bottles, MaxFund supporter License Plate frames, shirts, MaxFund safety whistle flashlight carabiners, hats, magnetic car ribbons, and lots of other great MaxFund-related merchandise! Since 100% of the profits go to MaxFund, this is a great way to get some cool stuff and help the shelter out as well!

Buy pet supplies through pawscorp.com A variety of items for pets of all kind, and at least 15% of every purchase goes to benefit MaxFund! This is a local company helping out a great local cause!

Amazon.com Wish List Purchase items for Maxfund from amazon and they'll be shipped right to MaxFund!	Become a MaxFund Member! $25 a year and includes a subscription to Paw Prints newsletter!

Pennies for Pets Program Bring in your change jar, we will put it to good use! Remember, a little change can change a lot, so bring in a lot of change! Typically the change adds up to several hundred dollars, so it really helps out!	Recycling Help the environment and MaxFund by recycling aluminum cans and certain Electronic Equipment (Toner cartridges, inkjet cartridges, used cell phones, IPODS, used PDA's, laptops, and video game systems as well). Just a reminder that MaxFund accepts only aluminum cans! Please no steel or tin cans, plastic, or glass jars!

Use Goodsearch.com for your internet searches Just put MaxFund in for the "I'm supporting..." and one cent from each search goes to MaxFund! One cent might not seem like a lot but if you search frequently, and everyone is using it, those pennies add up quick!	Donate your old vehicle! Wheels West works with us to arrange pickup of used cars, trucks, SUV's, motorcycles, even motorhomes! They can help arrange for towing when necessary, as well as title transfers etc.! Got a car you rarely use? Consider donating it to MaxFund! Completely tax deductible and the money will go to a good cause!

If you are an active volunteer who recorded time in 2009, hopefully by now you got an email from me trying to catch up everyones hours for the year. If you are still an active volunteer and haven't heard from me, please let me know! We use these hours to show what a difference the volunteers make to MaxFund, but we also use them when applying for grants and for regulatory purposes, etc. Having an accurate count of volunteer hours is important, so if you haven't heard from me and you volunteered hours in 2009, please let me know!
As of press time, we had approximately 595 volunteers who gave a total of 30,430 hours! Lets hope for an even better 2010!

As always, I value your feedback and if you have anything - questions, concerns, problems, ideas, complaints, I'd like to hear it all. Feel free to email me at matt@maxfundvolunteers.org or use the Suggestion Box.

Matt Adams
Volunteer Coordinator, MaxFund Animal Shelter
Webmaster, MaxFund Volunteer Website