Business Innovators Radio - The Inspired Impact Podcast with Judy Carlson-Interview with Jennifer Powell, Volunteer, Soul Dog Rescue

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

As a sales specialist for SketchUp in Trimble’s AEC division, I blend my interior design background with a passion for architectural technology. I help professionals navigate the industry’s leading 3D modeling software. Raised in Douglas County, I’ve always believed in the power of community. Since May 2024, volunteering has opened new doors for me, bringing fresh purpose and perspective to my life. When I’m not helping architects and designers transform their visions into reality, you’ll find me spending quality time with my husband and our dogs, who make every day brighter.I began volunteering with Soul Dog Rescue in May 2024 with my sister-in-law Heather Taylor. The mission of Soul Dog Rescue is to perform collaborative and targeted work, primarily through spay and neuter in underserved regions. Once a month we travel to the Navajo Reservation in the Four Corners Region where we may spay and neuter over 200 dogs and cats in a weekend. We rescue surrendered and stray animals and bring them to our clinic in Fort Lupton, CO where we hope to find foster and forever homes.Website: https://www.souldog.org/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-powell-2337ab72/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JPowell303/Recent Article: https://www.castlepinesconnection.com/rescue-rehab-and-adoption-through-soul-dog-rescue/**********************************************************Judy is the CEO & Founder of the Judy Carlson Financial Group. She helps her clients design, build, and implement fully integrated and coordinated financial plans from today through life expectancy and legacy.She is an Independent Fiduciary and Comprehensive Financial Planner who specializes in Wealth Decumulation Strategies. Judy is a CPA, Investment Advisor Representative, Life and Health Insurance Licensed, and Long-Term Care Certified.Judy’s mission is to educate and empower her clients with an all-inclusive financial plan that encourages and motivates them to pursue their lifetime financial goals and dreams.Learn More: https://judycarlson.com/Investment Adviser Representative of and advisory services offered through Royal Fund Management, LLC, an SEC Registered Adviser.The Inspired Impact Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast-with-judy-carlson-interview-with-jennifer-powell-volunteer-soul-dog-rescue

Welcome to the Inspired Impact Podcast, where dedicated female professionals share how they inspire impact every day. Authentic stories, passionate commitment, lives transformed. I'm your host, Judy Carlson. Welcome to today's episode of the Inspired Impact Podcast. I have a delightful young woman as my guest today. I can't wait for you to hear her. story and her heart for dogs and cats. So Jennifer Powell, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me, Judy. It's an honor to be a part of your podcast. Oh, great. Well,

get started. Tell us how did, when did you come to Douglas County, your family, your passions. All right. Well, my family moved to Douglas County in 1992. And we came from Florida and we up and moved. And, you know, I think the biggest thing, just to kind of give you some background with my family is my family has always been involved with volunteering. If it wasn't doing disaster relief for hurricanes, saving dogs when I was a little girl, bringing home stray dogs. But yeah, we moved to Douglas County and I grew up. I lived through when I lived in Highland's Ranch and also Castle Rock. And then, you know, just got involved with the community and really working with other organizations,

such as when I was 21, I did some Salvation Army volunteering during the Haman fire and really found a huge passion for it of helping others when they were going through such heartache. And during that time, I was going to school. for interior design at Repho Community College and led me up to my career now, which I am working at Trimble, which is a division of architecture, engineering, and also construction. So I sell a product called SketchUp, and it's a 3D modeling software. I'm very passionate about that. The beautiful thing about my job is it allows me to work from home. And that benefit is, is I get to foster dogs. And I get to bring home a lot of dogs.

That's awesome. Yes, yes, I love it. What really got me into, when I turned 40, I've just, I don't have any children, but I just felt the need that I needed to do something with my life. I did not feel, I haven't really had that passion to do anything. And one back in May of 2024, my sister-in-law, Heather Taylor and I, we decided to volunteer down at the Navajo Reservation with Soul Dog Rescue. And what we were doing there was we were doing, it's a neuter and spade clinic. And when we go down there, we go down there on a Saturday and Sunday, and we probably neuter.

and spay about 200 cats and dogs. And during that time, we get a lot of surrenders. We get a lot of people that come in and they can't get the care for their animals. So we are able to take them in and provide them the services that they need. We provide them vaccinations at a low cost. That's the main key. Okay. One thing that really inspired me about Soul Dog rescues is they told me there's an estimated $500,000 or 500,000 dogs and cats that are stray and abandoned on the Navajo Nation area.

And that is, it's just crazy to think about. And you think, wow, that's a lot. That is a lot. But the, but the behind that is one female that is an altered female in her offspring can produce over 11,000 lives a year. So if we're not going ahead in trying to get them neutered in spade, you can see how these, why there's so many dogs out there. Right.

Wow. And when we go down there, our rescue goes down there and we're, trying to, you know, we have to deal with the disease, dismemberment, and death. So that's why we're going down there to try to help these animals out and get ahead of the game because there's just so many dogs and cats. And I feel like a lot of people might not be aware of what's happening down there. So it's really important that, you know, if you wanted to get involved, it's a huge thing that you could really

impact our communities as far as getting ahead of the game. So there's not so many animals. So how did you and Heather come to know about Soul Dog Rescue and the Navajo Reservation? Yeah, so we, Heather actually was the first one to adopt an animal from Soul Dog Rescue. Okay.

And then getting more involved with fostering and basically just was trying to figure out how she can get more involved and how to do more for for that organization. So then the clinics are a huge one where you go down and it's wonderful because it's almost like a community of people that share the same passion with you, but they almost become family members. And they're all over the country. We have vets from Pennsylvania New Jersey. And they all fly down once a month to help out. And it's like a family reunion every month for me to go down there and be a part of that

group. And we'll have 14-hour days that we work. And we get people that will come and they'll actually bring us food, which is really nice because you just don't stop and you're on your feet all day. And it's really a lot of work. Like I said, if we have over 200 dogs. and cats, it is just sometimes we'll have maybe 12 volunteers working those clinics. So it gets to be a lot, but we're all there for the right reasons and time flies. And it's a really great way for

myself when I was wanting to get more involved and I felt like I needed to do something. It brought me together with finding friends for life. Yeah. And like I mentioned, just finding people the same passion as I have. So you and Heather then do you drive down there for a weekend or and then just go like on a Friday so you have all day Saturday and Sunday or how do you work for the timing? Yeah. So typically all the volunteers will have to get down. They'll drive their their own vehicles down there. We'll also bring a transport van that was donated to Soul Dog Rescue. And that van will also transport the animals that are surrendered back to Colorado.

Okay. But yeah, typically a Friday, we'll drive down there. And, you know, it's literally, it's all out of pocket for us because it's, you know, so we're really doing it with, you know, just our, you know, You know, we have just big hearts. And it's amazing when you drive down there, it's all the four-corner areas. So we go from, you know, New Mexico to Arizona to Utah. And in some parts of Colorado, when you go down there, it's a different world.

It is, you'll see more dogs on the side of the road. And it's sad. A lot of the times people will dump their dogs in, they call dumping grounds, and they just have to fend for themselves. And there's not a lot out there, not a lot of resources. And even the Navajo people, they're so wonderful and they're so nice. They really are. And they will come to our clinics and, you know, $20 to spade and neuter their animal is a lot of money for them. But the great thing is that we're providing incentives.

The Navajo Nation is providing incentives that they'll give $40 back to the residents that are getting their animals spayed and neutered. So they are trying to work hard to get the population down on the animals. But a lot of these people, when we talk to them, you know, they don't have electricity. They don't have regular water. So it's a really sad situation. So one thing we'll do is we'll collect a bunch of donations. So we just ask the community, sometimes we'll get open bag of dog food. And everything helps.

We will get it donated. We'll get blankets. We'll get towels. We'll get pillowcases. And we'll be able to bring that down there. Oh, Aikloes is a huge one for us. we will be able to give the residents these egg glues for the dogs because a lot of these dogs are outdoor dogs. So when we go down there, we can bring all these supplies to these people, especially because they can't afford dog food or cat food.

So we make sure that they are set up. They have a lot of the residents. They have big harps. They take in these animals and they wait for us to come down there. Really? And that's when, yeah, they'll surrender them to you guys. Wow. And recently I brought home two dogs from my last trip.

One dog they found on the side of the road. And it was, it was amazing transformation. This dog looked like a, it was matted up. And it ended up being a poodle, Aussie poodle, Ozzie doodle. Ozzie doodle, wow. And it was matted up. And if you saw it on my Facebook, it was. it was in pretty bad shape.

So I drove it down and I got great partnership with Pet Evolution in Highland Ranch. And Mike, the owner, brought the dog in and groomed it. And, you know, it was about $100 value. And he said, it's on the house because we want to make sure that these animals are in the best care. And we want your, we want your foster to be able to get adopted. And it just was the most amazing transformation. and within less than three days, I got the dog adopted. Wow. Congratulations, Jennifer.

Thank you. Oh, wow. I think the biggest thing, too, it's being the advocate for these animals, right? So I get to, and there's several volunteers at Soul Dog Rescue, so it's not just us, but it's everybody that comes together and they take the dogs in so they don't have have to go to the shelter. We give the dogs the love and we get to really kind of when they, when they come from the reservation, they're coming back on an eight-hour trip. We're able to then provide them the shelter, being a foster. And then we can then kind of get the dog or cats,

calm down and really starting to learn how a normal life could be in giving them shelter, food, water. And it is a really impactful thing to do is when you can provide and then also advocate when you do find homes for them to make sure they're going home with the right to the right family and really placing them to the giving that forever to go to their forever. home. So they come back and are they in your van or in the trailer or are they in cages or how does that work? Yeah. When we have a transport van that actually has a bunch of kennels that are actually they're tied in. So they will there will be times where like if there's a litter, we'll have a mother and maybe

10 puppies. We will put them in there with the moms and we'll transport them back so one crate could have up to, you know, 10 dogs in them, but they're tiny little guys. Yeah, right. And with my situation, Heather and I recently drove back in a two-door Jeep Wrangler with the two dogs. So we had them in the back seat. So it was with including all this stuff that we brought with our, you know, our suitcases. So it was, but the dogs did wonderful. And I find that the dogs, the dogs from the reservations are very unique. They are used to being together. So you typically don't have, you know, too much problems when you have two different dogs at the

same time when you're driving back there. They're typically pretty good at coexisting and living with each other. So, yeah, it was amazing story. And that's not the only one. That was just the recent one that we had. So you get them back here. And then are there people here in Denver waiting to foster the dogs that are coming back? Or how does the foster part work compared to the forever home part work?

Right. So we have a huge group on Facebook that is just set up for volunteers and fosters. So as we're driving back, we do notification everybody. We said we ask for all of our foster parents that are able to take in some animals to meet us up at the shelter. And this shelter is located up in Fort Lepton. And then they come and we then are able to start placing these dogs and cats into the homes. Now, the biggest thing is, especially with puppies, is we really try, If they're under a certain age to get them fostered in, it's a lot better for the animals,

especially if they come with their moms. Sometimes it's not always the case. And when I was doing a clinic in December, we had two-week-old puppies. Unfortunately, the mother was no longer around. She passed away due to just, we found these puppies. in the canyon. Oh, wow. So we were able to take these puppies back.

But the nice thing is, is when we brought these little guys in, we were able to get them into the foster home. And then the foster parents will sometimes have to bottle feed them because they're that tiny and get them up. And we make sure that they're all vaccinated. Before they can get adopted, they also have to be neutered in spade, of course. We provide microchips. We provide all the vaccinations that they need.

And, yeah, it's just, it's really, it's really a great thing to be able to help out these animals. So in Fort Lupton, what's the facility there? Is it a vet clinic or is it a home or? Yeah, it's both. So we have, we have, obviously we have, we have our clinics where we actually also provide spate and neutering up there a few days a week. And then there's also, we also home animals there. So there are a few animals that are just not there, if they might need additional training. So we also are bringing trainers up there to work with them so that way they can be,

they can find their forever home. If you go up there, it's a beautiful facility. They keep adding on to it. But you'll see, you know, a ton of different sheds and we call them apartments. Okay. And they are the warmest sheds. And they have these great areas where the dogs can go inside and outside. And, you know, they have their beds and everything.

And the dogs are so happy when you go up there to volunteer, they're usually out. And they get, they just get to be outside. But then they can go inside in the warmth at night. And a lot of the times, too, we, you know, we have volunteers go up there. and they might ask you to either walk the dogs, clean cages, clean bowls. So every time we have animals, we've got to make sure that, you know, we're washing their bowls and they're not, you know, they're not sharing. And each time you have to, so you can understand that it could be up to like 500 bowls

when you go up there to wash on like maybe a Saturday just because it's, It's all volunteers, so there's not a lot of actual workers with sole dogs, but everybody's just up there volunteering their time. So it's called Soul Dog Rescue in Fort Lupton. And then, so then you have all these dogs and they're in foster homes, but then you're looking for people for their forever homes. So how does that, how do the dogs transition from a foster home or from homing the animals in Fort Lupton to actually going into their, forever home. How do people find out about them or know that they're even available? Yeah. We have events every single weekend. And one of the big events, well, we're always, there's always, you know, events throughout northern and southern Colorado. And typically we'll be

at, you know, PetSmart. We'll be at Pet Evolution. I have an event coming up this Sunday at Lazy Dog restaurant in Highland Ranch. There's a lot of breweries. Everybody in the community wants to always host us, which is wonderful. We were just last weekend, we were at Pet Stuff Place in Castle Plains. They were wonderful. They had DJs and it's a great way to also promote businesses as well. Right.

Right. the dog-friendly community. I also, when we do these adoption events, we typically like to also have vendors there. So that way, if you were to possibly adopt a dog, you could then maybe talk to a dog wizard, which is another, it's a dog trainer and Lod Tree. They're amazing.

They come to our events. We get a lot of swag from other boutiques where they'll say, If you adopt a dog today, you'll get, you know, a free stuffed animal and you'll get, you know, 10% off any purchase at their store. So it's a great way to also help the local businesses as well. So definitely we're checking out. If you're interested in adopting, definitely check out the Soul Dog website. And we always put our adoption events every weekend.

We got a big one coming up for the Denver Auto Show. we're going to have a presence there in a little puppy area. So if you're overlooking at cars and you want to have some puppy time, come find us. Yeah. So are there certain volunteers at Soul Dog Rescue that crave organizing all of these events? And that's what their volunteer efforts are to Soul Dog Rescue? Yeah. So the volunteers, it's whoever just wants to step up.

So we have people that, you know, it's not just, they're not just in one area. They're coming to the clinics. They're fosters. But I'm also, I also coordinate a lot of the events in the South Denver area, as well as other people are constantly anybody that would like to just get involved. And, you know, if they have any great ideas, those are the people we are looking for because we would love to have them part of our sole dog rescue. Right.

What was I going to ask you? Oh, I know what it was. I saw something about a Soul Dog Rescue thrift store. What's that? Yeah, there's a little thrift store down in Denver. And, yeah, there was a lot of questions when I thought, too. I was like, well, what is that? That is a great area if you are wanting to donate some stuff.

So, for instance, to give you an example, the pet stuff place in Castle Pines donated about 200 ponchos to us. Oh, wow. And they're great ponchos. They're really quite neat. They're tied, and there's some southwestern of ponchos, but it keeps the dogs warm. So I thought, oh, my gosh, what are we going to do with this? Well, I can take it over to our thrift store, and they can sell it, and everything goes back to Soul Dog Rescue. you. And it's the same thing with any thrift store. If you have blankets, towels, anything,

a lot of times, unfortunately, if we have animals that pass and maybe you're not looking to have another one, a lot of people are always, you know, donating leashes, collars, all that stuff. That's a great thing to bring to the thrift store because sometimes people don't know where to where to send this. So if you do have any pet supplies, We would love to have that donated at our thrift store. So are there like, what's the word I'm looking for? Like when like a nonprofit who has food pantries goes to King Supers to get donations for food to go back to the food pantry or something like that, not sure I can't think of the word that that's called, but do you guys do those kinds of?

of things in neighborhoods or in communities to bring awareness because I'll bet you every other home has a dog cage in the basement. Yes, absolutely. Well, as far as what's interesting is if you were to donate directly to our shelter, I know we only take Kirkland Brand. Now, if you, but then again, there's a set of volunteers where, you know, I go before I go to the clinics, I'm just asking for anything. So to give you an example, if you have an open bag of dog food, I bring it with me. And when you're driving down to the clinics, there's a lot of times when you're stopping at gas station, there'll be about five stray dogs that come up to you. And I'm actually been going into the back of my truck and I'm distributing all the dog food that I have just to help them out. A lot of the times we don't know if you just don't want to take them in because you don't know if it's somebody's dog.

So that's the hard part is knowing, well, a lot of the times you can see if the dog's really skinny. Well, then that open bag of dog food would be very beneficial, especially to give to our volunteers that attend these. clinics because it is very helpful. But the actual bags of dog food that goes and feeds the dogs that are in the shelter right now, those would actually have to be a sealed bag of Kirkland brand. Okay. I think that they would sneak in. But a lot of the times I think that it's important for, you know, volunteers that are part of this organization to just put the word out. Right. I'm going down there and next, um, what is it, March 8th. And I'm looking for any donations you have and, you know, whatever I can use,

I will bring down and it gets used. So everything, I just, I'm so proud to be part of Douglas County. I think Douglas County has just opened my eyes to how kind people are and people have been so gracious to donate so much stuff and everything, everything helps. Yeah. Wow. So you are going back. down to the Navajo reservation on March 8th, you said, or you're going to be down there that weekend? Yeah, yeah. So every weekend, or I mean, sorry, once a month, and it's usually the beginning of the month.

Okay. That will go down there. So before we go down there, it's about a week that I put it out on Facebook. You know, I asked for anybody and everybody to share the post if there's any donations, and I'll just drive around with a few other volunteers and we'll collect them throughout the week before we go down there. So how many volunteers from the Denver area go down once a month? From the Denver area, there's probably about maybe just a handful,

maybe about eight of us. And then the rest of the volunteers are coming from either, you know, Utah, Arizona areas. We all come from all different areas and parts of the country. And the people from Utah and Arizona, do they take dogs back to their sole dog rescue facilities and stuff? Well, there's only one facility, and that's in Fort Lepton. But they'll take in quite a few animals just to foster them until we can then get a transport down there. So in the meantime, when we're not doing clinics, we'll get a notification, all the volunteers, and foster people will get a notification. we'll get a notification saying, I need somebody to drive to Alamosa to pick up eight dogs.

And the idea behind that is that what we're doing is we're working with the kill shelters down there. And any time dogs are going to get euthanized, they give us a heads up. So we drive, we try to clear them out, and then we will meet somebody halfway to pick up the animals. Okay. Wow. So, yeah, that's typically our mission, too, is when every time we go down, there, we're trying to clear out those kill shelters because we know dogs or cat should be left behind. Yeah. The vets that come from out east, how did they become familiar with Soul Dog Rescue? Sure about that. And I think it's just because I'm a little bit new.

And I wasn't, I don't get everybody's backstory on how they, they got involved in. I'm assuming that at some time they might have just been involved ahead of time and then maybe. be moved for jobs. Right. Or I also think too, I think Soul Dogs goes and tries to recruit as many vet techs as possible. So I think some of the people are getting notification. So that way they can help us work these clinics. Okay.

Do you have, go ahead. We also do one trip a year. We'll go down to like Ecuador. or we'll go down to Mexico. And I haven't been involved with that one yet, and I'm not sure when the next one is coming up. But that is another thing where we have people that will donate a little, I don't know, a plane, and then we'll be able to go down to these areas to a clinic down there.

Right. Yeah, I am aware of private pilots who will fly animals. around like that. That's amazing. That's great. Wow. So your background isn't necessarily in vet tech or any of that stuff. So when you're there with the veterinarians who are doing the spaying and the neutering, your role is to like work with the people that are bringing the dogs in, or are there some of you that are making sure the dogs recover or? Yeah. Great question. we are, for us that are not vet texts, we are there just to kind of assist with checking in

dogs, getting paperwork filled out, cleaning cages, making sure that once the animals come out of anesthesia, they're in the recovery area, you need to kind of sit there with the cats and dogs and just start kind of getting them back to where they need to be. So there's all different roles, but a lot of the times I'm doing checking in assistance and then also cleaning cages, which is the best role, right? Yes. So it may not be the most glamorous one, but it's definitely, you know, you want to make sure that those animals are kept clean and they're, you know, just being comfortable because it could be really overstimulating for a lot of these animals in one room. So just, you know, being able to just jump from one job to the next, wherever help is. So we could have up to, you know, five different tasks that we're supposed to do,

but just anywhere we can fill in because as volunteers come in, they're leaving at different times. We're just kind of filling the gaps to make sure we're able to get, like I said, our mission of trying to get as many animals spaded it or any vet services. that they need during that two-day period. And you always are at the same clinic and the same location? No, no. The great thing is, is down at the four corners, we have about five different locations that we do.

And actually, in fact, we have one coming up in Montana that I didn't realize, even though that's not the four corners, but we have a clinic and May going up to Montana. So we just, We try to bounce back from different areas such as Chinle, we were in Crown Point. We try to go at least twice a year to these areas. And really, they're not too far apart at the most. It might be two hours away from each other.

But definitely there will be residents that drive, you know, three hours just to get assistance. Yeah. And then how about where you guys stay? Is that designated ahead of time? Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes we've stayed in a church. We've stayed in dorms. Sometimes you're sleeping on the floor in a gymnasium.

So it's just basically, and there's times where we do get hotel rooms, which is really nice. But it's just, it's just part of, it's not glamorous. But it's like I said, it's just being there, you just get this high of just helping. And you do get pretty tired. But, you know, at the end of the day, when you get back from these clinics, it's definitely draining. But then you can sleep really good at night knowing that you tell. Wow. Wow.

Well, this is fascinating. As you can tell, I can just keep asking. more and more questions to learn more, but this has been such an amazing conversation. I'm so grateful that your Facebook post pique by interest to invite you to be on the podcast, Jennifer, because I just see so much potential with so many people in South Denver here who, you know, have a lot to offer and to give. And I love that, you know, you said anything is helpful. So, So what are some ways that our listeners can get involved, contact you, learn more? What would be some of the best ways, Jennifer?

Yeah. So getting the best way to go is to souldog.org. And if you want to be a foster, we could use fosters. If you'd like to volunteer, volunteering could be helping out at adoption events or going down to Fort Lepton and helping out. with the clinics or driving down to the clinics once a month. There are so much to do or even just like I said, donating dog supplies, blankets, towels, anything. Everything, everything helps. But if people want to get involved, you know, I definitely say start with that and, you know, we are a really strong community. So you're going to also be finding a great group of friends.

So I would say we welcome everybody. Yeah, I love that. Well, thank you so much. I'm just delighted that we had this conversation. And hopefully lots of people will be inspired by your story, Jennifer, to become involved. Thank you so much for having me and letting me just blab about my passion. I love it. Yeah, it's funny because when you were talking about your job,

and then all of a sudden it led you into being able to volunteer. here and all of a sudden your whole world opened up and your face brightened up. And it's just so, it's just really delightful. So thank you. You're a big blessing to a lot of dogs and helpful with people too. So thank you, Jennifer. Thank you, Judy, for letting me share my story. And I appreciate you giving me the time.

It's just wonderful. I really appreciate you. Oh, thanks. Thanks so much for joining us for the Inspired Impact Podcast. To listen to past episodes, please visit theinspiredimpactpodcast.com.