Volunteering
Make a real difference at RSPCA Woodside by giving your time to support our work. Whether you enjoy caring for animals, helping in our shops, assisting with events or admin, or supporting maintenance and transport, there’s a role for you. Please note: you must be over 18 to volunteer.
To see all of our live opportunities
Below are the different volunteering roles you can apply for.
Dog Walking & Cattery:
These are the most popular roles at Woodside and we occasionally recruit volunteers for these within our Animal Care Team. These roles encompass all aspects of caring for our cats and dogs and can range from walking the many sizes & types of dogs to cat socialisation, cleaning, and grooming.
In the Cattery, volunteers spend time grooming and playing, providing stimulation, and also helping cats develop the socialisation skills which can aid a successful rehoming. To volunteer, you’ll need to have some level of physical strength to be able to pick up cats, but full training will be provided.
When assisting in the kennels, you would play a crucial role in caring for the dogs that are waiting to be re-homed. You’d assist with the feeding, the cleaning & disinfecting routine, and maintaining kennels to a high standard throughout the day.
We do ask that when applying for these roles, you are able to commit to a regular shift each week to aid our animal care team.
Pet shop
As a pet shop volunteer, you will be helping to run our shop based at Woodside Animal centre. Your role would include, operating the till and card machines, taking payments for goods sold; greeting customers and helping with any enquiries. It would also include stocking shelves which can involve lifting heavy bags of food. Full training will be provided.
Admin:
Our admin roles are within the busy customer service team, which involves lots of multi-tasking and helping with the general running, rehoming, and visiting areas of the centre. This is a role where you’d be able to experience and understand the inner workings of the charity and support us in keeping its cogs turning.
If you have a good phone voice, are comfortable with talking to customers, taking reservation details, ideally have some computer skills and have fantastic communication skills, then we would love to have you join our volunteer admin team! Contact us for more details.
Charity Shops:
We have 8 charity shops across Leicestershire, Rutland and Peterborough. For these shops to run we rely on a team of volunteers to work alongside our shop managers. All the funds raised in our stores, go directly to supporting the animals in our care at Woodside Animal Centre.
Your role within the shop would include, operating the till and card machines, taking payments for goods sold; greeting customers and helping with any enquiries; accepting donated goods; assisting in the stock room with steaming, sorting, and hanging the clothes and replenishing stock in an eye-catching fashion.
If you think you can help us continue to run these shops, then please get in touch.
Events & Fundraising:
If you prefer a more ‘hands-on’ role, then volunteering for our events team will help our centre not only fundraise but create action within our community. During this role, you can help with anything from setting up marquees, to stewarding, to helping us on our stands, to helping with our outreach network within the local Leicestershire area by speaking with the community about our work.
Within our fundraising team, you can join us as a group of friends, work colleagues, students or come on your own you will be made very welcome. If you love to be outdoors and has a few hours available regularly or as a one-off, we would love to hear from you.
General:
If you prefer a more ‘hands-on’ role, then volunteering to do general chores or gardening will help our centre clean and tidy. During this role, you can help with anything from DIY, mowing, planting and weeding or perhaps some of the path maintenance jobs. We would welcome any help that you can offer.
Volunteer Van Driver:
Helping collect and distribute donations to our charity shops, manage waste, and transport goods. Driving our vehicle and use provided equipment for the safe transportation of animals.
