Family starts new tradition aiding homeless pets
By Kathy McCarty
Staff Writer
Several members of a local family spent time during their Christmas vacation making a difference in the lives of homeless pets at the Central Aroostook Humane Society in Presque Isle.
Photo courtesy of Jessica Roettele
NEW FAMILY TRADITION — Jessica (Bell) Roettele, formerly of Westfield and now living in Ohio, returned to Aroostook to visit with family at Christmas. While here, she established a new family tradition with her nieces and nephew — buying items for the pets at the Central Aroostook Humane Society in Presque Isle, spending time with the animals and looking for ways to help them find new homes. Pictured from left at the shelter on Dec. 23 are: Kamden Bates, Kaci Bates, Paige Billings, Taylor Billings, Keegan Bell (holding Tuffy, the shelter’s resident kitty) and Kooper Bell. The family hopes to make helping homeless pets an annual event.
“My maiden name was Jessica Bell and I’m originally from Westfield. I grew up in The County my whole life — didn’t leave until I joined the Air Force after high school. I currently live in Loveland, Ohio, with my husband. I’m no longer in the service,” said Jessica Roettele.
Roettele said her whole family still lives in Maine, including two brothers and a sister that live in Presque Isle and Caribou.
“I get together with my nieces and nephews when I come home to visit for the holidays and any other chance I can make it happen,” she said.
It had been four years since Roettele’s last Christmas trip home.
“I was very excited about spending time with all my nieces and nephews, as they are growing so fast. My husband and I foster dogs for Rescue Ohio English Bulldogs and do volunteer work for them. All of the kids really love animals and some of their pets were adopted from the Central Aroostook Humane Society, so it seemed like the ideal place to do a trip together and spread some Christmas cheer,” she said.
Roettele said volunteering is something her whole family takes part in.
“Some of the older kids have started volunteering already and really enjoy it. On Thanksgiving, some of my family worked with the Presque Isle Wesleyan Church and packaged meals and delivered them. Kaci (niece) does volunteer work for Unite Against Bullying and Kamden (nephew) has volunteered at this shelter for an adoption day through school,” she said.
Living so far from the rest of her family makes it difficult for Roettele to join them in volunteer projects. While home for the holidays, she decided to change that.
“Since I’m usually not able to partake in the volunteer activities with the family, I thought it would be fun to do something with the kids while I was home that they could all appreciate. I told them I would pick them all up from school the day before Christmas break and we were going to find some fun things for the animals at the shelter to donate and spend some time visiting the animals that wouldn’t have homes for Christmas,” Roettele said.
She said the kids were all very excited and on the way to the shelter they decided the family could do more than that.
“I told them of the rescue I volunteer for and all the animal rescues I follow on Facebook and how they help animals find new homes. We decided as a group that given the power of social media these days, maybe we could pick a special cat and dog and do our own ‘Pet Spotlight’ on our Facebook page and see if we could help them get a new home for the New Year,” she said.
Roettele said they dropped off the donations and spent an hour or so visiting with the cats and dogs.
“Keegan (nephew) is a huge animal lover and at only 8, he’s pretty sure he wants to be a ‘vegetarian’ (veterinarian); his brother, Kooper, is 4 and not the biggest animal lover but he too even got into the spirit and gave Capone, a pit bull at the shelter, a big hug and kiss. Paige (niece) is scared of cats, but she too even gave the cat rooms a go to try to spread some cheer,” she said.
According to Roettele, the kids had fun visiting and saying things like: “Well, these puppies will really like those toys we brought,” and “Jiggs is going to like that food we brought.”
“It was pure awesome to watch them visit and smile and love on the animals. Betsy (Hallett, shelter manager) and another woman at the shelter helped us pick Capone and a cat named Cindyloo for our own personal Pet Spotlight. We even got to go into a special separate room with Capone to visit for a while,” she said.
Roettele said the kids couldn’t stop talking about how much fun the visit was and the family is already trying to come up with ways to make it bigger and better for next year.
“We have never done something like this before with the kids, but it has been decided it will now be an annual event. They were able to bond with the animals and learned the importance of giving back. I think it helped reinforce the need to spend time and resources at the shelter to promote adoption. They thought maybe we could organize an adoption day next year or a drive to collect more things for the shelter. Or ‘Papa Shotgun’ could build one of his many amazing creations to raffle off and raise money for the shelter,” said Roettele.
She said the family tells her the kids are still talking about the trip and how much fun they had.
“I got texts from the kids asking if I have news on Capone and Cindyloo and if they’d found homes,” said Roettele, noting that both animals have since been placed in their “forever homes.”
“We did a Triple B (Billings, Bates, Bell) Pet Spotlight for the two animals the kids really fell in love with, Cindyloo and Capone. It meant the world to the kids to find these two homes for the new year,” she said.
Roettele said her hope for the visit was that the kids would learn that they can make a difference to people or animals, in their gestures, and even the smallest things they can do to help others really do matter.
“I noticed on Facebook that Taylor (niece) shared the Central Aroostook Humane Society’s post for helping the abandoned animals found in Fort Kent to try and help via social media since our visit, which made me really proud. My family and I hope that others will do the same thing; volunteering makes you feel good to see how happy others are — just trying to do something small to make a difference to someone or something less fortunate. It’s important to give back when you can, during the holidays or any time of year,” said Roettele.
