Carolina Tiger Rescue Documentation

My alternative spring break trip to the Carolina Tiger Rescue was one that I’ll never forget. Not only was I granted the experience of a lifetime, but I returned from Pittsboro, North Carolina with 22 new friends that I continue to hold contact with! Together, we cleared woods, raised fences, held onto truck beds for dear life, and grilled 23+ burgers and hot dogs in a park at night with no lighter fluid. At first, going on this trip was just a way to fulfill an honors experience, but it was so much more than that. I learned what I am capable of as a person, as a leader, and as a volunteer. I spent my spring break in a new state surrounded by 200 pound wild cats, who can say that? This experience showed me how to be a better leader, and that taking risks can lead to some serious benefits. With the success of this trip, I believe that I will be more inclined to take chances doing things that I’m unfamiliar or uncomfortable with. Click the Read More link below to read my Reflective Essay for my trip to the Carolina Tiger Rescue!

1. How has the service experience contributed to your personal, professional and academic goals?

My experience at the Carolina Tiger Rescue as an Alternative Spring Break Trip with Serve Beyond Cincinnati contributed to my goals in many different ways. Some personal goals that I have are to help animals, to volunteer and improve the lives of others, and to work toward the awareness of animal protection. Throughout this trip, I worked in creating a new enclosure at the reserve for animals, meaning that they are now able to take in more large cats at the rescue. This is a direct way that I was able to help at least a small number of animals to escape from a life of captivity or mistreatment. I was able to improve the lives of others by putting in an effort and working hard so that the workers at the rescue did not have to.

Because of the work that my group members and I put in, the workers at the rescue no longer have to worry about clearing the woods for the trucks, raising the fence, or clearing the old enclosures on their own. Following my trip, I was able to provide others with the information that I learned at the rescue in order to create awareness for the protection of animals. Before the trip, I had received many comments joking that I should take one of the tigers hope as a pet. Keeping exotic pets is legal in North Carolina, but not in Ohio. Between conversations about my trip and captions with my photos that I posted on social media, I explained the issue with keeping tigers in captivity. Not only are these animals wild beasts who have internal instincts that cannot be turned off no matter how they are raised, they need large areas to roam and do what they would do in nature. These large cats are not built for being kept in cages, bottle fed, or kept as pets. I was as clear as I could be about this with everyone who has asked me about my trip, and I plan to do the same in the future to further increase awareness.

My professional goals as a speech pathologist require that I work with a wide range of types of people. This trip allowed me to work with people who had different perspectives and preferences than I, as well as people who had grown up with a different lifestyle. I worked with people who I had never met before, yet there was no one throughout the week that I didn’t get along with. I believe that this experienced helped to shape me into a more understanding, open-minded person. You can get along with anyone as long as you are able to understand their perspective and make self-adjustments to accommodate to those perspectives.

My academic goals are to shape myself as a leader. The Carolina Tiger Rescue trip really helped me to realize how much I can handle in a leadership position. I would have never thought that I could provide meals for 23 people for a week on a limited budget and with health restrictions, but as a trip leader, I did it. I would have never thought that I could direct four cars full of strangers to a location in North Carolina that I had never been to without running out of gas, but I did it. One thing that this trip allowed me to do was to work as a leader with complete strangers, and they continued to trust me day after day to lead them in the right direction. If my academic goal was to shape myself as a successful leader, I believe that I succeeded on this trip.

2. What specific communication theories are applicable to this experience and how were they manifested or visible during the experience?

Communication was a huge part of this experience, especially for me, as a trip leader. I had to be in touch with the Serve Beyond Cincinnati organization not only during the trip, but also weeks before and after. Before the trip, I had to contact members of SBC to ensure that all of the group members had paid, that we had enough drivers for the rental cars, that the hotel had been booked with the correct number of rooms, that the budget allowed for enough for food and gas, and that our group could arrive on time at the rescue with all forms filled out. I also had to contact my group in order to obtain emergency contact information, phone numbers, emails, and funds. In addition, I had to get with the rescue to ensure that they knew of our arrival and would be prepared for the number of group members we had coming. If there was ever a time that communication was inadequate, members would contact me to find out what to do.

During the trip, I kept in constant contact with SBC, my group, and the members of the rescue. I contacted SBC to resolve issues with the hotel reservations and budget. I contacted my group throughout the week to decide where we were going and when we were to be ready to leave, as well as preparing meals and keeping all of the rental cars’ gas tanks full. I also spoke with the members at the rescue and other volunteers throughout our volunteering to decide the best way to execute maneuvers to be able to, as one of the temporary workers said “work smarter, not harder.” We had to work together so that no one got hit by a machete, no one got lost, and no one did anything that didn’t work toward our goal.

After the trip, I stayed in contact with my group and collected everyone’s SBC Visa Gift Cards and receipts from throughout the week. I also had to contact SBC to get these things returned to them, as well as discuss the refunding from us cancelling our hotel reservation from one of the nights and the money we received from our fundraiser. I have never learned more about the importance of communication as I had this week. There was never a time when I could just sit back and keep to myself. Miscommunications could lead to disaster or injury, and I think that this made itself apparent throughout my week at the Carolina Tiger Rescue.

3. Define specific learning outcomes that were most applicable to your service experience and give concrete examples of their completion.

Learning Outcomes- Community Engagement Theme

Possesses awareness of purpose of service, including need for reciprocity, understanding of social issues, and ability to see issues from multiple perspectives.

My trip to the Carolina Tiger Rescue showed me how important of an issue that keeping exotic animals as pets is. Before the trip, I would have thought that keeping a tiger as a pet would be totally awesome, and that if I raised one from a cub that it would grow up to be no different than a giant domestic house cat. Little did I know, instinct doesn’t go away, no matter how you raise the animal. Keeping exotic animals as pets is purely selfish. These animals need to be protected, but keeping them in a house or cage is not protecting anyone. Keeping exotic animals as pets puts yourself, your family, and the cat itself in danger. If the exotic animal somehow hurt someone, it could be euthanized for fulfilling its inner instinct.

The purpose of my service at the Carolina Tiger Rescue was not only to build an enclosure for animals, but to learn the issues that exotic pets face and to share that with the world. When I changed my point of view to the perspective of the wild cats, I realized how important it is for these wild animals to remain in the wild if at all possible. Once you take a wild animal and raise it as a pet, it is unlikely to be able to be sent into the wild and survive. With my new knowledge of what the goals of the tiger rescue are, I hope to share my insight with others in the hopes that one day, there may be a better understanding of the reasons that wild animals need to remain in the wild.

Relates, communicates, and works effectively with others towards sustainable social change.

Throughout my stay at the Carolina Tiger Rescue, my group worked alongside the rescue workers, volunteers, and another volunteer group from Oswego, New York. Together we worked to clear a woods, declutter an old enclosure, and raise fencing for a new enclosure. Even if I sometimes didn’t understand the reasoning of the volunteers or the “odd” behavior of the members of Oswego, I put my judgements aside to work with others. I understood that, although I may not understand why we spent the first two and a half days cutting down trees with dull tools, that it made sense and had a clear purpose to the members of the rescue. I worked as hard as I could the entire week to get as much work done as possible with the help of my group and the others. Together, we put our differences aside in order to create a space for future saved exotic cats to take sanctuary. In the end, all of our hard work was worth it.

#CTR