RedRover Responders Communications Assistants: Getting the Scoop on Deployments!

Our Communication Assistants (CAs) are volunteers that do the critical work of capturing and conveying the work that RedRover Responders volunteers do at emergency responses. Their photographs and stories appear in our Emergency Response Journal, in photo albums on RedRover’s Facebook page and other RedRover publications, showing the everyday scenes that we all experience while on deployment: bonding with the animals, bringing the scared animals to the front of the cage through caring attention and portraying what being on a deployment is like. We simply could not show what RedRover Responders volunteers do without our Communication Assistants.

Volunteer Debbie Ferguson has been a Communications Assistant with RedRover for two years and loves the work. Debbie, who loves to write and photograph, enjoys the assignment because “I get to use my creative side.” Further, she knows that doing this work makes a difference for the RedRover Responders program. “It is incredibly impactful. The stories get at the emotions we are feeling and make the volunteers at home feel like they are part of the deployment, or want to be a part of it.”

Marcia Goodman, from Cromwell, Connecticut, has also volunteered as a Communications Assistant on several deployments. Her beautiful photographs show volunteers bonding with animals, and the animals responding to the volunteers’ love and kindness, even after being extremely fearful and shut-down.

Marcia’s favorite photo? “That’s easy. It’s the photo of volunteer Janet Roush and Hope at the DeKalb, Mississippi, hoarding deployment. Hope hid in the rear corner of her kennel for the first few days. She was so skinny and depressed.” Despite the kind attention from other volunteers, Hope remained scared and in hiding. Marcia was there when Janet walked into the kennel and started talking to her. “Hope slowly walked across the kennel to Janet and smushed up against her. Even now, looking at that photo tugs at my heartstrings because it brings back that wonderful moment.”

View more of our Communications Assistants' photos by visiting RedRover on Facebook and browsing the blog archives.

Are you a RedRover Responders volunteer who loves to write or take photographs? Send an email to Leili Khalessi, RedRover’s Communications Manager at lkhalessi@redrover.org.