Companions for Life Education Alliance Mixer

This is a slightly belated update but we'd like to share as it's important for Dallas area shelters and rescue groups to know about.

On March 21, Companions for Life and Texas CARES hosted the 1st ever Companions for Life Education Alliance Mixer, a social and networking event for directors and managers of a dozen or more area shelters and rescue groups.

We know that everyone wants to work together for the common good, and we're confident this new education alliance will help - the alliance will be made up of local animal welfare organizations who agree on 2 key points: they understand the need to work together and are willing to do so, and they understand the role of humane education in the effort to reduce the number of homeless pets.

People are encouraged to talk about current events, problems they are having, or ideas they wanted to share. A comment from the mixer sums it up: "You can toss out ideas – things you’ve tried that worked that someone else might want to try, or things you tried that didn’t work, too – so another group doesn’t make the same mistake. We can help each other in a variety of ways – just by being willing to come together periodically and talk to each other. "

Rebecca Poling, President of Companions for Life, pointed out that another benefit of these events is being able to point people to useful resources. At a recent CFL TOP DOG event it was surprising how many people were totally unaware of the resources the speaker mentioned – resources we thought everyone knew about.

It was a great reminder that when you all are running a rescue group on a day to day basis, you often don’t have time to spend researching issues. We have lists of resources of all kinds, links to websites, brochures, books, all kinds of things so if there is an issue that you can’t help each other solve, perhaps we can follow up with some resources that might help – be it board development, fundraising, volunteer issues, whatever.

Joining the alliance is free. Organizations joining the Alliance will be given an Education Alliance Member logo for their website – or blog. And they’ll receive a Membership Certificate that they can display at their adoption events or put in your newsletters to show your supporters your commitment to the entire community. If YOUR GROUP would like to be involved in networking and be on the invitation list for future mixers – plus get some great educational ideas in the process, contact us at info@companionsforlife.org.