Combining my loves of animals and kids, I have registered to become a RedRover Reader, reading books about animal welfare to school children. It's a pretty amazing program:

"To help children develop empathy and critical thinking skills, RedRover Readers volunteers read a story aloud, discuss it, then oversee an art or writing project that emphasizes the concepts gleaned from the book." (quoted from the RedRover site)

Volunteering involves committing to a full year of service, comprised of reading to the same group of kids for about 45 minutes a week for five weeks (doing several of these 5-week courses throughout the year). Volunteering also requires a full day of training, which I will be doing on March 3, over in Walnut Creek.

They still have slots for 5 more people in the workshop, and even though the site says registrations are closed, if you are interested you can get in by contacting Karly Gould in Sacramento within the next several days: 

kgould@redrover.org

tel 916-429-2457

And then, if you like, you can carpool to the training with ME!