City staffers spruce up Bedford Animal Shelter

When city employees taking part in a special Emerging Leaders program started thinking of ways to improve Bedford, it wasn’t hard to decide to spruce up the animal shelter.

The shelter was clean and well-kept, but it looked drab and dreary and didn’t have an inviting atmosphere for people who stopped in to adopt dogs and cats.

The makeover is coming at a good time for the shelter, which is offering discounts to people who adopt a pet.

Jeanne Green, whose day job is community services supervisor for the library, was also in charge of overseeing the volunteers wielding paintbrushes and planting flowers.

“What was most rewarding to me was that none of us had ever worked together. We had employees from all over the [city] such as Public Works and the Police Department,” Green said.

“A lot of these folks don’t get to work with one another. We had to hurry up and learn about our strengths and weaknesses,” Green said.

When the employees started talking to one another, they quickly discovered that they have a “passion” for the city, Green said, adding that “many of us live in Bedford.”

“We see ourselves as the ambassadors for the city. Our neighbors know we work for the city when our neighbors see us, they want to know what’s going on,” she said.

In Bedford, the animal shelter is part of the Police Department. Deputy Chief Eric Griffin said the city employees did an “awesome” job painting the interior in bright colors and planting flowers.

“We’ve always gotten good comments on how clean the shelter is, but we’ve also gotten bad comments on how the shelter looked. It is [now] very colorful, and everyone seems to like it,” he said.

Griffin said the shelter often sees more animals in the spring, which led to the idea of lowering the cost of adopting them.

Jill McAdams, city human resources director, said this is the second year for the Emerging Leaders program. Participants have to be nominated by their supervisors or they can nominate themselves, she said.

Participants take personality assessments and learn how to build relationships and work with others. They also take public speaking classes and read and discuss books on leadership.

McAdams said the employees chose the animal shelter because it was a project that could help the city and help people in the community. They sold T-shirts to raise money for their project saying, “Be a Hero. Save a life. Find a furr-ever-home.”

Green said she and her team have more ideas to improve the shelter. Eventually, the employees hope to have comfortable seating so that people can spend more time bonding with their newly adopted animals or if people must come to the shelter to surrender their pets.

Green said she is looking forward to doing more with the emerging leaders.

“It makes sense to utilize the talents that you have, and it also creates great morale,” she said.

This story was originally published June 24, 2015 at 11:47 AM with the headline "City staffers spruce up Bedford Animal Shelter."