TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Volunteers do a lot to help Pima Animal Care Center run smoothly but this is something else.
About four hundred volunteers went to work at PACC Wednesday building places for pets to play and doing other work to clean up the center.
They made cat scratching pads and dog park equipment.
The care center's director says getting the help of 400 volunteers all at once in incredible.
Justin Gallick says, “I have never seen this many volunteers out at the shelter at any one time. Every project they're doing directly impacts the dogs and cats at our shelter from building toys to retrofitting and adding items to our dog play yards that are going to be used for many years to come."
The volunteers are from all over the U.S. They work for the Mars Company. It's best known for candy like M&Ms but is also makes pet food like Pedigree and Iams through its Mars Petcare division.
They're in Tucson for their annual sales meeting, where it's a tradition to do a day of community service and it's usually work to help pets.
KGUN9 reporter Craig Smith asked Rachel Chiapetta of Mars Petcare: “You sell pet products are these folks pet lovers themselves?”
She answered: "They are. In fact I have two cats that I adopted over 16 years ago that are part of our family and we are. We're lucky to be able to bring our pets to work with us and so it's really a part of our culture and how we have our business set up."
Pima Animal Care is getting a new building. Voters approved that and it’s under construction now but the work the volunteers are actually doing is the sort of thing that will be useful even after the new building is up.
And the fun will not just be for shelter dogs. Part of the work is upgrading the pet playground in nearby Christopher Columbus Park.
