Miranda Moore
I discovered the Landmark Volunteers program 2 years ago while researching ways to work with animals. They are my passion and I hope will be in my future career. However, I applied relatively late and was assigned to a group working at Perkins School for the Blind, just outside Boston. That was an amazing experience. Our team got to live in a house and had a wide choice of assignments, which was how I discovered my love of hard manual labor as I worked on clearing the grounds.

So the following year I signed up as soon as the programs were available, and got my first choice—working at the Ark, an animal shelter in rural Maine. My experiences at Perkins had prepared me well—most of the work involved at The Ark was physical, although there was also time for interaction with the animals. We dug trenches to lay drainage pipes, erected chain-link fences for dog runs, painted some of the buildings, created a mural for the cat room, made a garden, and did brush work. It was hard, demanding work, but it was definitely worth it. I loved the feeling of being tired, dirty and sweaty at the end of the workday, but then looking back at what we did that day and seeing the difference we made.

The shelter staff was fully occupied taking care of the more immediate needs of the animals—living creatures that could not survive without them. It was our job, as volunteers, to make the place as welcoming as possible so that people who came to adopt a dog or cat would form a positive impression. We needed to work hard to make the place beautiful, even if it meant sacrificing some of our own time with the animals. Besides the work, there was also the social aspect to this program. Basically, there was one adult (Will, our team leader) and thirteen teenagers living together in a church hall for two weeks. We were all such different people. But in living and working with together for fourteen days, we all definitely bonded—especially the time we spent on the road in our big red van! Our team members were a lot of fun, and I enjoyed getting to know them. We already held our first reunion this fall.

The Ark was an experience I will not forget. I am so grateful for the time I spent there and all that I learned. I now know I can cook a decent meal for fourteen people and can sleep on a floor for two weeks. I know how to properly use a pickaxe and how to construct a fence. I know how to get along and live with a wide variety of people and deal with whatever challenges come up. I spent part of my summer doing something I will never forget, with people that I will always remember. It was a lot of hard work but extremely rewarding and I would do it all over in a heartbeat. My only regret is that I did not discover Landmark Volunteers sooner, so that I could have joined one of their most challenging wilderness programs before graduating high school.

back to volunteer list