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Youth Programs Ways TO Get Involved for the Under 18 crowd

We are contacted every day by amazing young people who care about animals and want to help and we have many opportunities for you to get involved! Here are a few ideas of how you can help. For more information please contact homershelpers@homewardtrails.org

Please note that we are limited in what we can allow youth to help with due to insurance restrictions and safety concerns.

Youth Registration and Waver Form
Help
Fundraise
Visit
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Promote our Adoptable Animals

Help Advertise Events & Adoptable Animals

  • Make signs or flyers for upcoming events
  • Bring the flyers to local businesses in your area and ask permission to post them
  • Make signs or flyers advertising a specific animal (older dogs or pets with special needs that are harder to place)
  • Help publicize events and adoptable animals on your Facebook, blog, or Twitter account

Collect Items and Money For the Animals

Fundraising & Supply Drives

  • Organize “Change for Animals” at your school, by seeing which class can collect the most change to donate
  • Donate your birthday, Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah by having friends and family members bring donations for the animals to your party
  • Hold a bake sale, yard sale, or lemonade stand to raise money for the animals
  • Work with neighbors and local businesses to help organize a donation drive in your community
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See HT in Action

Visit Our Adoption Center

  • Help with cleaning, laundry, stuffing Kong and making enrichment toys at our dog Adoption Center (youth over 16 years of age only, by appointment only) ***for safety and liability reasons volunteers must be 18 years of age and older to volunteer around the dogs or during our open adoption hours***
  • Schedule a time for your class, scout troop or church group to visit our Adoption Center located in Fairfax Station, VA to help out and learn about animals (all ages welcome!, by appointment only)

A Few More Ways to Help

  • Ask your family to foster a dog or cat
  • Bake healthy homemade treats for the animals
  • Make catnip toys for cats in boarding or foster homes
  • Invite us to your school, we love to talk to kids about animal rescue and animal care

Just For Fun

Homer’s Helpers Coloring Sheet

Download Here

Youth Programs

Check out our fun and educational programs designed for young animal lovers!

All programs take place in person at the Homeward Trails Adoption Center located in Fairfax Station, VA. 

Pet Pals Parents Night Out

Children Ages 7-12

Cost: $40 per session

One Friday evening a month

6:00 PM – 9:30 PM

Parents and caregivers can enjoy a few hours to themselves while the kids have a great time hanging out at the Adoption Center. 

Pet Pals Parents Night Out is mix of humane education and fun for our youngest animal lovers. Each monthly session will follow a theme and feature a short lesson, a project to help the animals, a craft to take home, a movie (maybe with a furry friend), pizza and drinks.

Sign Up

Homer’s Shelter Helpers

Youth ages 13-17

Cost: $25 per session

One Friday evening a month

6:00 PM – 8:30 PM

Geared toward our middle and high school age animal advocates the Homer’s Shelter Helpers program is based around community service with a side of fun. We will start each session with dinner and a discussion topic to help youth learn more about understanding animals, shelter operations, and animal advocacy. We will then dive into volunteering around the shelter – sorting donations, cleaning, organizing supplies, making enrichment toys, or caring for our kitties. Youth can earn 2.5 community service hours per session. 

Sign Up

Scout Troop/Club Visits

We are happy to host scout troops and other youth organizations at our Adoption Center. Visits last 1-1 ½ hours and we will assist with badge requirements, visit a few animals and complete a project like making enrichment items for the shelter dogs. There is a requested donation of $5/child to offset the cost of staff time and project supplies. Please email humaneed@homewardtrail.org to schedule. 

Email to Sign Up

Camp Waggin’ Tails

Youth ages 8-13

Cost: $425 per session

One or two weeks each summer, typically in July

Camp Waggin’ Tails will run July 24-28, 2023

8:30 AM – 3:30 PM daily

During our week-long camp held at the Homeward Trails Adoption Center in Fairfax Station, kids will learn all about animal rescue, responsible pet ownership, positive dog training, hear from a variety of pet professionals, and work hands on with carefully selected adoptable dogs while engaging in fun games and projects designed to reinforce what we have learned.

Registration is $425 per child and includes two daily snacks, all supplies, a water bottle and a Camp Waggin’ Tails t-shirt.

If you have any questions about any of these programs please contact rebeccag@homewardtrails.org.

Sign Up

More News from the Trail!

  • Saving 200 Lives – Our Biggest Event Ever!

    We are SAVING 200 LIVES THIS WEEK!!  Our biggest event ever! This time next week we have TWO Trails UP teams hitting the roads to save lives in this unprecedented effort! And we need your support to make it happen. We are sooo excited!! And to make it more fun for everyone, this effort is part of our Quarterly Raffle. For each $100 donor, we pick one winner at random to win a $350 Amazon gift card, a custom dog or cat goody basket and 2 free tickets to our Chili Bingo event in the fall – winner to be chosen as soon as we meet our $ goal. 120 DOGS WILL BE STERILIZED….. “I love this dog that wandered up to my house. But I’ve got a female dog inside and this dog is not neutered. The cost of getting him neutered is more than I can afford. But I hate to take him to the shelter. So for now I have to keep him chained up. If I can get him neutered and vaccinated then he can live indoors with us. I would love for him to be a real part of our family.” – Mr. Jenkell For the first time ever, Homeward Trails has organized a 120-dog spay/neuter event in Galax, VA, one of our most favorite Trails UP communities. We will be traveling to Galax where we have been working for months to secure 120 dogs who desperately need neutered, vaccinated and microchipped. These animals are loved but have owners who simply cannot afford their surgery. Without this event many would face becoming pregnant and ending up in the local shelter with puppies. Or possibly facing a life on a chain. This is no way for a family to live.  As much of our Trails UP spay/neuter efforts have focused on cats due transport options and surgical availability, our hearts have been hurting as we see the shelters filling up with dogs & puppies and so many people desperately wanting to get their dogs neutered. And so we have been working overtime to put together this major event. We will be partnering with several groups to bring a mobile unit to Galax and bring these lifesaving and lifechanging services to these dogs. We cannot WAIT. Every dog will be neutered, vaccinated and microchipped. And we hope to send all home with dog food, flea/tick meds and for those who need it – a dog house! The cost to us for this event comes to $120/dog  – as we are providing these services totally free to the community. PLEASE consider sponsoring a dog for this event and allowing us to truly change the life of a dog and the people who love him/her. A donation of any amount will truly make a difference! 80 CATS WILL BE STERILIZED The second half of our Trails UP team will be heading to Buchanan County to do free spay/neuter and Trap-Neuter-Return for 80 cats. The number of cat lives that will be saved from preventing unwanted kittens is often totally hard to digest. It’s HUGE. Just last month, we spayed almost 25 early pregnant cats – you can see how many lives that saved through prevention. It also means the world to the human caretakers of these kitties who so often struggle to feed their own families let alone the dozens of cats they care for. We will spend 5 days in the field working with community members in this very under-resourced communities. We will set traps in trailer parks, in yards and barns, on decks and in gardens – wherever we can – to get 80 cats sterilized, vaccinated and microchipped.    This will require not only 36 hours of trapping but more than 10 additional hours of driving to and from our surgical clinic. Our van will be loaded up with 80 cats (the very most we can fit) to make the 3.5 hour one-way trip to the surgical center. This is a huge undertaking each time we do it. But with no affordable large-scale spay/neuter clinics close by, we take what we can get. Our team is so dedicated! And so over a short period of just 5 days, we will sterilize, vaccinate and microchip 200 animals in two separate but equally under-resourced communities. And we are SO EXCITED. Please sponsor a dog or cat at just $100 and you can be a winner of a $350 Amazon gift card, a custom dog or cat goody basket and 2 free tickets to our Chili Bingo event in the fall – winner to be chosen as soon as we meet our $ goal.

  • Helping Happy Hounds – Fee Waived Adoptions for All Hounds

    As you may or may not know, Virginia animal shelters are filled with Hounds. These amazing dogs are most often discarded by callous hunters, found starving wandering the countryside. Many never make it as hunters and are then tied up to chains or left along the side of the road like old furniture. A good number of them do not make it out of shelters alive.But these dogs – like all dogs – are amazing and worthy of families. We just cannot get them families fast enough to stop them from dying in our shelters when there is no more space.And so we are trying something new here. ALL HOUND DOGS ADOPTED FROM HOMEWARD TRAILS WILL BE FREE. Yes, we are WAIVING ADOPTION FEES for Hounds for the foreseeable future.We hope that will entice well-matched applicants to consider a Hound now. Use the money you save on training, treats, toys.We think all dogs are worthy. But the reality is that some take extra incentives. Some have more barriers to getting adopted. And the result is well, more end up dying. And no – this does NOT mean we are just giving dogs away. All applicants will still go through our application/screening process to ensure good homes. This is just us trying to save more dogs by eliminating one more barrier to adoption. And hey, Hound lovers can use all the extra money they can get to buy treats, right?Help us help these Hounds. Our program Helping Happy Hounds is live NOW. Let’s save some lives!

More News from the Trail!

  • Saving 200 Lives – Our Biggest Event Ever!

    We are SAVING 200 LIVES THIS WEEK!!  Our biggest event ever! This time next week we have TWO Trails UP teams hitting the roads to save lives in this unprecedented effort! And we need your support to make it happen. We are sooo excited!! And to make it more fun for everyone, this effort is part of our Quarterly Raffle. For each $100 donor, we pick one winner at random to win a $350 Amazon gift card, a custom dog or cat goody basket and 2 free tickets to our Chili Bingo event in the fall – winner to be chosen as soon as we meet our $ goal. 120 DOGS WILL BE STERILIZED….. “I love this dog that wandered up to my house. But I’ve got a female dog inside and this dog is not neutered. The cost of getting him neutered is more than I can afford. But I hate to take him to the shelter. So for now I have to keep him chained up. If I can get him neutered and vaccinated then he can live indoors with us. I would love for him to be a real part of our family.” – Mr. Jenkell For the first time ever, Homeward Trails has organized a 120-dog spay/neuter event in Galax, VA, one of our most favorite Trails UP communities. We will be traveling to Galax where we have been working for months to secure 120 dogs who desperately need neutered, vaccinated and microchipped. These animals are loved but have owners who simply cannot afford their surgery. Without this event many would face becoming pregnant and ending up in the local shelter with puppies. Or possibly facing a life on a chain. This is no way for a family to live.  As much of our Trails UP spay/neuter efforts have focused on cats due transport options and surgical availability, our hearts have been hurting as we see the shelters filling up with dogs & puppies and so many people desperately wanting to get their dogs neutered. And so we have been working overtime to put together this major event. We will be partnering with several groups to bring a mobile unit to Galax and bring these lifesaving and lifechanging services to these dogs. We cannot WAIT. Every dog will be neutered, vaccinated and microchipped. And we hope to send all home with dog food, flea/tick meds and for those who need it – a dog house! The cost to us for this event comes to $120/dog  – as we are providing these services totally free to the community. PLEASE consider sponsoring a dog for this event and allowing us to truly change the life of a dog and the people who love him/her. A donation of any amount will truly make a difference! 80 CATS WILL BE STERILIZED The second half of our Trails UP team will be heading to Buchanan County to do free spay/neuter and Trap-Neuter-Return for 80 cats. The number of cat lives that will be saved from preventing unwanted kittens is often totally hard to digest. It’s HUGE. Just last month, we spayed almost 25 early pregnant cats – you can see how many lives that saved through prevention. It also means the world to the human caretakers of these kitties who so often struggle to feed their own families let alone the dozens of cats they care for. We will spend 5 days in the field working with community members in this very under-resourced communities. We will set traps in trailer parks, in yards and barns, on decks and in gardens – wherever we can – to get 80 cats sterilized, vaccinated and microchipped.    This will require not only 36 hours of trapping but more than 10 additional hours of driving to and from our surgical clinic. Our van will be loaded up with 80 cats (the very most we can fit) to make the 3.5 hour one-way trip to the surgical center. This is a huge undertaking each time we do it. But with no affordable large-scale spay/neuter clinics close by, we take what we can get. Our team is so dedicated! And so over a short period of just 5 days, we will sterilize, vaccinate and microchip 200 animals in two separate but equally under-resourced communities. And we are SO EXCITED. Please sponsor a dog or cat at just $100 and you can be a winner of a $350 Amazon gift card, a custom dog or cat goody basket and 2 free tickets to our Chili Bingo event in the fall – winner to be chosen as soon as we meet our $ goal.