Here at Lakeside Village, we like to offer our support to a range of organisations and charities across our community and one of those is the RSPCA Rotherham, Doncaster and District branch which has a site on Bawtry Road. Here, we find out a little more about their important work from Sarah Jenkins, fundraising manager.
The RSPCA is the oldest welfare charity around and it is our vision ‘to live in a world where all the animals are treated and respected with compassion’. We work hard to ensure all animals can live without pain and suffering and without charities like the RSPCA, there would be a lot more animals not getting the help they need.
By providing excellent care at our centre on Bawtry Road, establishing a successful rehoming process, and promoting responsible pet ownership, we’re working to encourage a more positive, respectful and compassionate attitude towards all animals amongst the general public. Last year as a branch we cared for over 1,100 animals.
We rehabilitate and rehome sick and abandoned animals, fundraise to raise money to pay for food, staff, vet bills and everything else these animals need whilst they stay with us. We observe these animals and spend a lot of time with them so we can find them the correct home with the care and attention they need. The team here work around the clock as a lot of the animals need to be on foster as they require a bit of extra care or are too young to be on the centre and need bottle feeding through the night.
The team
Our team is made up of the CEO Mary McSherry who is in charge of the ongoing strategy and operational running of the branch. Laura Bullock is animal centre manager and oversees the animal side of everything including staffing, bills and vets. Melanie Medlock is retail manager and looks after the running of our three charity shops and online sales and media.
As fundraising manager, I plan and run the events, sort all the sponsorship, manage volunteers and do my best to get in as much money as possible.
We then have staff in each area of the centre so reception staff and customer care as well as animal care staff in kennels, cattery and small animals who sort the areas day to day, feeding the animals, administering medication, walking, enrichment, socialising, getting to know the animals and writing rehoming recommendations.
Our shop staff run their own shops which we have in Bawtry, Thorne and Rossington and we have our wonderful volunteers who work across all areas of the centre.
Community support
The support of the local community is vital to us as we are self-funded and only receive 5% of our income from National RSPCA, the rest we have to raise ourselves. Our shops are a huge part of the community and the staff in the shops are very dedicated to raising awareness of what we do as a centre. We are invited to a numerous community events in the areas we cover and we attend as many of these as we can.
The customers of Lakeside Village Outlet Shopping have been amazing to us. We have had some great clothing items, kids activities and games, bric a brac and some collectable items which we sell on in our charity shops or online and has really help to make us some much-needed funds. Lakeside also did a bedding campaign for us about a year ago where shoppers could donate their old bedding at the shopping centre. This was brilliant for us as we are always short of bedding, as you can imagine with 45 kennels to clean a day we go through quite a lot!
We’re very grateful for everything Lakeside Village has done for us and for allowing us on site every month to do these collections. The team always think of us with extra events they run and help out wherever they can.
All our staff work very very hard and some even at all hours of the day and night if they take animals home on foster so any extra help we get from places like Lakeside means a lot to us all. In addition, the increased awareness of our branch and the support we provide to the local community is increased through our presence at Lakeside Village.
To find out more about the RSPCA – Rotherham, Doncaster and District branch please visit: www.rspcadoncasterrotherham.org.uk
