A snapshot from the heart

Posted on May 17, 2017

Giving back to the community is a strong part of what defines Health New England’s corporate culture. We encourage our associates to volunteer their time and talents to organizations and causes they are passionate about. We’re proud to say that—because of them—we are able to touch thousands of organizations and countless people in the communities we serve.

Here is just one of their stories…

Kara Ribeiro, a Project Leader for Health New England, has been volunteering with the Dakin Humane Society in Springfield since 2015. Dakin is a local animal welfare organization that provides shelter, medical care, spay/neuter services and behavioral rehabilitation for more than 20,000 animals each year. Their organization is supported 100 percent by donations from the community.

Kara volunteers her time at Dakin once a week to take photos for their website of the animals that are up for adoption. The time she spends with the organization varies “depending on the number of animals and how cooperative they are that day.” She also makes sure she touches up all the photos before uploading them to the website so all the animals can put their best paw forward. Kara has helped with several events, including assisting with Easter Bunny photos for dogs and their humans.

We asked her what brought her to Dakin and why she continues to volunteer. “I love animals and I felt an attraction to Dakin’s mission to improve the lives of animals in need and the people who care about them,” she said. She personally had fostered eight cats and kittens and adopted both her cat and dog from the Dakin animal shelter.

During her time volunteering and being a foster “kitty mom,” Kara has seen that this time of year has become affectionately known as “kitten season” because during the spring the shelter sees a sharp uptick in the number of pregnant mother cats and orphaned litters of kittens that are surrendered. Her latest outreach on behalf of Dakin is to help them with an associate collection of items through the month of May. Some of the most-needed supplies being collected include: all-meat baby food, dry kitten chow, unscented baby wipes, paper towels and tax-deductible monetary donations, which are used for specialty supplies. If you would like to help Kara in donating supplies to Dakin– here is how you can.

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