How You Can Help

Adopt an Animal
When you're ready to add an animal companion to your household, don't buy from a pet store whose animals come from hideously cruel and unhealthy situations. Visit your local animal shelter or animal control facility instead. If you're looking for a specific breed that may not be immediately available in the shelter, check for a breed rescue group that works with that breed. For links to these and other sources, click here: http://www.petfinder.org/

Volunteer Your Time
One of the most rewarding experiences you will ever have is waiting for you. You may be able to participate with as little as a couple of hours a month. Contact your local shelter or animal control facility to get details of the opportunities available. You may want to help in a kennel, participating in direct care - feeding, cleaning, walking and helping to socialize the animals. You may want to help with office tasks, answering telephones, filing and computer work. You may want to work with potential adopters, helping people to find the right animals. Often there are opportunities to help when you're at home during evening hours. However you choose to become involved, you'll know that you are personally and directly helping individual animals - and that's a very nice feeling indeed!

Click here to learn about volunteer opportunities with MAC!

Volunteer Your Home
Foster homes are needed for a variety of situations. Sometimes an animal may be too young to be immediately adopted. Sometimes an animal may have minor health problems, like colds, or other special situations that need to be resolved before the animal can be adopted. Sometimes a shelter may just get too full, and a foster home provides temporary shelter until there's room for the animal. Contact your local shelter, animal control facility, breed rescue group or MAC for information about foster opportunities

Give Stuff
Often things that you might discard can benefit the animals. Almost all animal care facilities are always looking for materials and supplies. Most use towels, sheets and blankets to help make animals comfortable. Many use newspaper to line the bottoms of cages. Often there are other needs, like cat litter or dog toys. Some shelters use donated cat and dog foods. Paper towels are often needed, as are laundry supplies to wash those linens. Contact your shelter or animal control facility to see what's needed in your area.

Give Money
By giving to a shelter or an animal welfare organization, you are helping to promote the kind treatment of animals. Some shelters will use your funds for the direct care of the animals in their kennel. Other organizations will use your donation money to generate public awareness campaigns that will promote animal welfare. In either case, you will be making a difference for animals. If you would like more information about giving opportunities to help MAC, Inc. to continue its work for animals, feel free to contact us at PO Box 766, Westborough MA 01581 or email mac@massanimalcoalition.org

Spread the Word
Learn about issues affecting animals in your community, and help to make others aware of those issues. Check out the information available elsewhere on our site, as well as through our links to other sites. So much animal suffering is the result of simple ignorance - you can make a real difference by helping to inform your friends and neighbors.