Soren and Ingrid Roth : Volunteer Spotlight

“I have been volunteering with Furry Friends for about a year and a half, and my daughter Ingrid has been volunteering for close to one year,” Soren says. “We both remember the first cats who made impressions on us when we started: Wrangler for me and Tobi for Ingrid!

“We originally got involved with Furry Friends because my wife is allergic to cats, and Ingrid and I love them. We were also looking for ways to give back to the community, to help make the world in general a better place, and it seemed like a natural fit.

“We volunteer together for two hours a week on Sunday mornings, where we do a deep clean of the med room. The med room is the intake room where all of the new ‘residents’ are quarantined for three weeks. When new cats arrive in the med room they can be quite scared. But when we see them again the following week, it’s so sweet and so satisfying to see them behaving more calmly and starting to allow their true personalities shine through.
“Our biggest challenges? For Ingrid, it might be getting up at 7AM! For me, it’s getting down on my hands and knees, sticking my whole body into a kennel and trying to deep clean while being in close quarters with … a feral new rescue … a curious new rescue … an escape artist … and so on.

“Our proudest moments, without a doubt, are when we get frightened kittens and cats to relax and open up. Outside of Furry Friends, I am a software engineer and Ingrid is in 10th grade. And since mom is so allergic to cats, we have a 10-year-old dog named Buddy at home.  

“As for our talents and interests? Ingrid loves ballet, and she is a great artist. Secretly, she is pretty good at math and is a very strong swimmer. I, personally, am just happy to be her dad and I love that we have this opportunity to bond both with the kitties and with each other.”
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Furry Friends Volunteer Spotlights are compiled and written by Nomi Berger who is the bestselling author of seven novels, one work of non-fiction, two volumes of poetry, and hundreds of articles. She is a volunteer writer for Furry Friends in Vancouver, WA and also volunteers her writing skills to animal rescue groups in Canada and the USA.