Humane Society hopes to make adoption forms more accessible for Spanish speakers

(KENT COUNTY, Mich.) Owning a pet is something many people hope to do at some point in their lives. 

However, for some hopeful pet owners, it's not as easy when the adoption forms are only written in English. 

The West Michigan Humane Society is hoping to change that by getting their adoption forms translated into Spanish. 

Lexi Feutz, a member of the Humane Society's Junior Board saw a need for the forms to be accessible to Spanish speakers when she was working as an adoption counselor at the Humane Society. 

"In that volunteer work had run into a couple folks who were predominantly Spanish speaking and had trouble filling our our application and then obviously we had some trouble having typical discussions we have with potential adopters about finding the right fit for them in an animal," said Feutz who now serves on a subcommittee of the Junior Board focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. 

Ariel Christy, another member of the Junior Board's subcommittee focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion says a new employee at the Humane Society is fluent in Spanish and is going to work on translating the adoption forms. 

"We wanna make sure that not only are we reaching these Spanish Speakers but also giving them a document that they fully understand to further benefit the animal that they're interested in and also being able to see that they are recognized with the humane society," said Christy. 

Hanna Schulze, the President of the Garfield Park Neighborhood Association in Grand Rapids says more than 50 percent of the neighborhood is comprised of Spanish speakers. 

Schulze says more documents need to become accessible for Spanish speakers and that it's important for them to be culturally translated as well. 

"It's gonna give access to resources, it's very important for folks to be able to participate in community building in things like that so things like adopting animals and pets and that sort of process um that helps families stay connected," said Schulze. "That helps families do fun things with their kid."

Christy and Feutz say another goal is for the West Michigan Humane Society to have to have list of veterinarians in the area that speak Spanish. 

"We want to serve as many people as many people in the West Michigan community as we can," said Feutz.

Christy says the hope is for the forms to be translated sometime this summer.