Ms. Mazzarella has always had a love for marine life. In 2007, Mazzarella began volunteering at mystic aquarium due to her aspirations to take care of sea life. Mazzarella only volunteered for a couple years until it became too much after having her second child. She was forced to step away from something she looked forward to and enjoyed.
Mazzarella was first motivated to volunteer, 18 years ago to work with beluga whales. When she found out that Mystic Aquarium was going to start housing lots of turtles, coming from a Massachusetts establishment that could not house all the turtles that needed care in 2021. She began learning about how the turtles were getting cold-stunned and not able to get to warm water. Cold-stunning is a cold-blooded shock that occurs when sea turtles are in rapidly cooling water for a long period of time causing them to become often immobile.
Once Mazzarella learned that these Massachusetts establishments couldn’t house all of the turtles and that mystic aquarium was going to be taking them in, Mazzarella immediately felt the need to take action.
Now, 18 years later, Mazzarella volunteers every Sunday for four hours. There she participates in various hands-on activities, including wound care, animal feeding, IV administration, assisting vets with procedures, and animal restraint. These are her favorite activities to participate in, though she can only work in specific exhibits with specific animals, as that’s how it’s organized.
“We get to do enrichment, and then there’s also the not-so-fun, like cleaning, dishes, laundry, and stuff like that. But it’s all part of the care that they require,” said Mazzarella, “I only work for the Animal Rescue Clinic, and we only do seals, and the turtles, but different species of both.”
To be a volunteer at the aquarium, you must go through a series of training and teachings. The training involves shadowing current volunteers, paying attention to the tasks they perform, and observing their methods. There are also interns volunteering who go to East Coast schools like UConn and URI.
In her years of volunteering at Mystic Aquarium, her most memorable experience was releasing a sea turtle she had cared for into the ocean.
“Some of them come in really, really sick. Some of them, unfortunately, don’t make it, but so many of the ones we rehab end up back in the wild, and watching them, you feel like you were a part of it,” said Mazzarella.
Mazzarella has incorporated this volunteer work into her weekend every single week, going only on Sundays and always enjoys her time spent there. However, she often struggles to balance her job as a high school English teacher and mother of two with her volunteer work in animal care.
“There are some weekends when I wish I didn’t have to go because I have to do groceries, or I have to grade essays, or laundry is piled up. Then I get home on Sunday, and I feel very overwhelmed. But while I’m there, I’m really enjoying it, so it’s something for myself,” said Mazzarella.
