County Honors Animal Shelters’ Volunteers of the Year
A north Indio retiree received the Coachella Valley Animal Campus volunteer of the year.
And the County Board of Supervisors also recently recognized a Rubidoux High student as its Riverside Animal Shelter volunteer of the year.
Lee Powell of Indio’s Shadow Hills community donated countless hours of dedication at the Coachella Valley Animal Campus in Thousand Palms to earn the honor. And Chris Cox, 18, of Rubidoux showed up to help almost every day at the Riverside shelter.
Mr. Powell’s involvement with the animal campus follows an interesting career as a political analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency and also several years for San Diego State University in philanthropic development and public relations.
Powell moved to the Coachella Valley a little more than a year ago and enjoys what he described as “ultimate luxury time.” In addition to animal welfare issues, Powell’s volunteer time is also geared toward environmental protection and wilderness preservation.
At the CIA he worked as a budget and programs manager and editor. Writing continues to be a passion for Powell. He writes feature stories for his community’s monthly news magazine.
“Lee frequently spends time in the volunteer office socializing cats and providing them extra one-on-one attention,” Volunteer Program Manager Candace McGrew said. “This really helps make our felines that much more adoptable. We can’t thank him enough.”
The Coachella Valley Association of Governments’ Animal Campus Commission honored Powell at its Thursday, May 14meeting. Powell’s volunteer service recently surpassed the 200-hour mark.
Roughly six months ago Powell took on a project cat he named Samson.
“He was just plain scared,” Powell recalled. “He would not engage with humans at all. He would just sit in a corner and howl. He did that for about a month.”
Eventually, Samson, an orange male Tabby, warmed up to Powell and it gave the volunteer great pleasure to see Samson adopted to a family.
“He was an absolute sweetheart – it just took a while to work with him to bring that out,” Powell said. “The family said that Samson turned out to be just one of the best cats they’ve ever had.”hereas Mr. Powell is enjoying his retirement years, Chris Cox still has a lifetime of work ahead of him. He is planning a career in the military. For now, however, the Rubidoux High senior is putting in tireless free hours at the Riverside Shelter where he has been a familiar face since June 2007.
The Department of Animal Services honored Chris with volunteer-hour service pins of 100, 250 and 500. He earned the 2008 volunteer of the year by logging a massive 404.25 hours of service, but also because he is so great at keeping everyone’s spirits up, McGrew said.
He is always a youngster on the move: He rode his bike five miles to and from the shelter on the days he came to help. Adoption assistance, dog walking, organizing dog-washing events are some of Chris’ favorite tasks. He organized a group of teen-agers and animal-shelter dogs to walk in the Fourth Annual Salute to Veterans Parade in downtown Riverside in mid-April.
“Chris is just a gem,” McGrew said. “He has a great spirit and is willing to help on so many activities. The animals benefit because of his wonderful energy.”
The county Board of Supervisors honored Chris – and volunteers from various other county departments – at its regularly scheduled April 28 meeting.
The Department of Animal Services will recognize The Banning Animal Shelter volunteer(s) of the year later this month.