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Mary Ellen Morris Nears A Decade of Dedication - June 17, 2008
 | | Mary Ellen Morris, 10th year as a dedicated volunteer at the Eleanor Sonsini Animal Shelter |
Pittsfield - Mary Ellen Morris marks a milestone this June 28: the beginning of her 10th year as a dedicated volunteer at the Eleanor Sonsini Animal Shelter in Pittsfield. It is remarkable for someone to complete that long a time volunteering in one place. What makes it even more remarkable is that Mary Ellen is already retired from teaching jobs at both the Central Berkshire School District and Sacred Heart in Pittsfield, and still keeps her hand in education by working as a substitute teacher at local schools.
Mary Ellen is obviously an animal lover, with three dogs of her own — two adopted from the Sonsini shelter.
"Working with animals is my passion," she says. "I believe we are stewards of our environment and the animals that share it with us."
At the shelter, she regularly works two shifts each week, and still finds time to work daily at the shelter's social correspondence. One self-imposed task is to make sure that every shelter donor gets a personal, handwritten thank you for their gift. Over the years, that effort has led to many personal relationships with shelter supporters.
Mary Ellen arrived at the shelter pretty much by serendipity. With no thought of volunteering, she attended an open house at the shelter back in 1999 and immediately saw that the animals needed more social interaction than they were getting. The idea of volunteers was new to the shelter at that point, though volunteers now serve as a crucial adjunct to the paid staff members.
Back then the shelter was a bare bones operation run directly by the city. With the gradual increase in volunteers, a transition began to take place and today the shelter is managed by Friends of Eleanor Sonsini Animal Shelter, Inc., a non-profit volunteer organization. Mary Ellen played a significant role throughout the transition and served on the first Board of Directors.
Other changes in which she takes pride include outdoor runs for the dogs so that they can spend part of every day outside, and the ability of the shelter to take voluntary surrenders from local residents who find themselves no longer able to care for their pets. Mary Ellen points out that the latter not only helps the people who need to surrender animals, and the animals being surrendered, but provides a much better selection of animals for the many people who come to the shelter looking to adopt a new four-legged friend.
Mary Ellen has also left her mark at the front of the Sonsini Shelter, with a Memorial Garden which she planned and planted in memory of the animals whose lives could not be saved. That memory may well underlie her dedication to thanking donors, since some of the animals who did not make it simply needed more medical care than the shelter could afford to provide at the time.
Mary Ellen's dedication to the animals extended to learning T-Touch massage at her own expense, to help relieve stress in the animals. When the shelter received two animals injured in a car crash when their owner had a heart attack, she used T-Touch techniques to help the animals avoid going into shock.
From everyone at the shelter, and from the many animals you've touched, Mary Ellen, thank you.
The Eleanor Sonsini Animal Shelter is at 63 Downing Parkway, in the Downing Industrial Park off Hubbard Avenue in Pittsfield. Directions are available online at www.pittsfieldanimals.org, or you can call the shelter at 413-448-9800. |
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