We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Camille Bates. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Camille below.
Camille, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When you’ve been a professional in an industry for long enough, you’ll experience moments when the entire field takes a U-Turn, an instance where the consensus completely flips upside down or where the “best practices” completely change. If you’ve experienced such a U-Turn over the course of your professional career, we’d love to hear about it.
One of the biggest shifts I’ve seen in animal rescue over the last several years is how dramatically the way people connect with pets has changed. Not long ago, most adoptions started with someone walking into a shelter or hearing about a pet through word of mouth. Today, that journey almost always begins online.
People now meet pets for the first time through a website, social media post, or shared story from a friend. That shift has completely changed how rescues like ours operate. It’s no longer just about caring for animals behind the scenes — it’s also about making sure their stories, photos, and personalities reach the right person at the right moment.
Because of that, we’ve been investing more intentionally in the digital side of our work. We recently launched a brand-new website for Midwest Animal Rescue & Services designed to make it easier for people to meet adoptable pets, learn about fostering, and get involved with our mission. The goal was simple: remove barriers so that when someone feels that spark of connection with a dog or cat, they can take the next step quickly and confidently.
What’s interesting is that while the tools have changed, the heart of rescue hasn’t. It still comes down to people opening their homes and their hearts. Technology just helps us bridge that gap faster. A photo, a story, or a simple share online can connect a pet with the family they’ve been waiting for — sometimes in a matter of hours.
Every time I see someone discover their future pet online and then come meet them in person, it’s a reminder that these shifts in the field are ultimately about one thing: helping more animals find their way home.
Camille, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Animal rescue has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I would choose topics like puppy mills and rescue education for school projects. My parents weren’t involved in rescue at the time, but I always felt strongly that animals deserved better.
When I was nine years old, a neighbor mentioned she needed to find a foster home for a dog that same day or the dog would be euthanized. I begged my parents to let us help, and that dog — Betty, a Basset Hound/Brittany Spaniel mix — became our very first foster. Seeing Betty find a loving home showed me just how powerful a community can be when people step up for an animal in need.
A couple years later, two small Shih Tzus needed help and the rescue we were working with at the time wasn’t able to step in. My mom decided that if no one else could help, we would — and Midwest Animal Rescue & Services (MARS) was born. Since then, MARS has grown into a foster-based rescue and nonprofit veterinary clinic serving the Twin Cities community, and we’ve helped save more than 21,000 pets.
Today my role focuses on marketing, storytelling, and community engagement — helping connect people with adoptable pets, sharing the stories behind our work, and making it easier for people to get involved through fostering, adopting, volunteering, and supporting the mission.
At its core, MARS exists to solve two major challenges in animal welfare. The first is helping homeless animals find safe, loving homes through foster-based rescue and adoption. The second is helping families keep the pets they already love by providing access to affordable veterinary care through our nonprofit clinic, as well as obedience training to help owners and dogs communicate. By addressing both sides of the problem — rescue and prevention — we’re able to support both pets and the people who care for them.
What sets MARS apart is the community behind it. Rescue isn’t something one organization can do alone. It takes fosters, adopters, volunteers, donors, veterinarians, and neighbors working together to give animals a second chance. That collaborative spirit has allowed MARS to grow into something much bigger than a rescue — it’s truly a community of people who believe every animal deserves a safe place to land.
What I’m most proud of is seeing how that community continues to show up. Over the years, more than 21,000 animals have found safety, care, and loving homes through MARS. Every adoption and every foster home represents someone choosing compassion — and that’s something I’m incredibly honored to be part of.
Have you ever had to pivot?
One of the biggest moments that required us to pivot as an organization happened in 2022 when our Executive Director, Susan, passed away unexpectedly. It was an incredibly difficult time for our team.. Susan had been a driving force behind the organization, and suddenly we were faced with the question of how to move forward without her.
In the years that followed, we had to regroup, restructure, and find our footing again.
Our current Executive Director, Amy, stepped into that role with incredible grace and resilience. The work of leading an animal rescue is never easy, and the challenges facing nonprofits today — rising costs, a difficult economy, and an increasingly complex rescue landscape — make it even harder. Watching Amy lead through those realities every day has been truly inspiring.
But if there’s one thing that experience reinforced, it’s that the mission always comes first. The animals still need help, and the people who love them still need support.
At MARS, we’ve always believed in meeting people where they are. We focus on conversations, education, and finding the right match for both the pet and the person, rather than relying on rigid or outdated standards. Rescue work requires resilience, and our community continues to show up again and again to help animals find safety and second chances.
The challenges may change, but our commitment doesn’t. At the end of the day, we keep moving forward because the animals need us — and our community believes in the work just as deeply as we do.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
One of the moments that best illustrates resilience for our organization happened during our “Operation: Save MARS” campaign.
Like many nonprofits, we’ve faced periods where the future felt uncertain. Rising costs, increasing medical needs for rescue animals, and the broader economic climate all created real pressure on the organization. There were moments where we knew we needed to act quickly and rally our community if we wanted to continue providing the level of care animals deserved.
During Operation: Save MARS, our supporters showed up in extraordinary ways. With the help of New York Times bestselling author Abby Jimenez and influencer Amber, known online as That Midwestern Mom, and our MARS Community, the story of our mission reached thousands of people. What followed was an incredible wave of support — donations, shares, volunteers stepping forward, and new members of the community discovering our work for the first time.
It was amazing to see so many people band together to support MARS and our mission. It was truly humbling. Moments like that show the incredible power of people who care coming together to help animals in need.
The challenges in rescue never really stop, but neither does the compassion of the community around us. That support is what allows MARS to keep moving forward and continue giving animals the second chances they deserve.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.midwestanimalrescue.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwestanimalrescue/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MidwestAnimalRescue
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-animal-rescue-&-services
- Twitter: https://x.com/mwanimalrescue
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MidwestAnimalRescueServices
Image Credits
MARS Community Members