Jeannette Barnes

Jeanette Barnes coordinates and operates weekly off-site adoption events at a local Arkansas Petsmart store. About 50 Sundays a year, she drives to the shelter, loads animals and equipment, drives to the Petsmart store and set up an adoption display with the animals. She provides advice, counseling and information for every potential adopter. Rarely does a week go by that at least one pet is not adopted t the off-site location.

When she is not helping the shelter, Jeanette is active in animal rescue with her own group, Animals R Us, which provides foster care and adoption for homeless pets. She also assists other organizations by providing transportation services—all free of charge to the organizations but paid for out of her own pocket.

In addition to those things, Jeanette also volunteers with the local search and rescue team and makes time for training with her search dogs, and is often called away from her home to conduct searches at all hours and in all kinds of weather. Jeanette and her former canine partner, Hannah, who passed away in late 2009, were instrumental in locating the bodies of two boys who had drowned in a small lake near their home last summer.

Jeanette has saved the lives of thousands of animals with her service. Even if animals that have a temporary foster home waiting for the them across town or across the country but have no way to get there, Jeanette will find a way to get them there. With a network of people with the same mission, volunteers are moving animals from over-crowded and over-burdened shelters into new homes with new families.

As a search and rescue volunteer, she has helped find missing persons and helped many families find closure when the body of a loved one was found. She is always ready to help, and will drop everything to help a person or animal in need.

The adoption rate reached 90 percent for the first time. Most government animal shelters are lucky to adopt 25 percent of the animals they bring in, but thanks to Jeanette’s dedication to helping the homeless animals with foster care and transportation, we are able to place nearly every adoptable animal that comes into the shelter.

Jeanette’s seemingly boundless energy and endless compassion reminds volunteers that saving just one makes all the difference. She rarely takes a day off from serving her community and is truly an inspiration to others.