Name: José Joel Delgado-Rivera

Position: Chief Communications Officer

As our Chief Communications Officer, José is responsible for the ARL’s public presence by leveraging strategic written, oral and graphic communications. He is the proud fur-parent of Nox, a one-year old domestic short hair cat.

We asked him a couple of questions to share with the community he serves.

Tell us about how you got into working in the field of communications.

I started studying Chemistry to become a pharmacist, but I realized that I love to interact with people, so I transferred to another university after my first year and got a degree in Journalism and then a Master’s in Public Relations. 

How long have you worked in the nonprofit sector, and what made you make the transition into working in animal welfare? 

I started my non-profit career working as a tour guide at the Puerto Rico’s Children Museum while I was in college in 2005. I fell in love with their mission, and then I became the volunteer supervisor, event coordinator and spokesperson for the organization. My first contact with animal welfare was with Humane Society of Puerto Rico. I had the opportunity to redesign their website while working in a higher education setting. I kept working remotely after I moved to Pennsylvania, and after a year, I decided to apply to this job at the ARL. It has been an adventure and I’ve learned a lot about the industry and the animals that we care for. 

What are some of your responsibilities as the ARL’s Chief Communications Officer? Can you describe a day in your life? 

As a Chief Communications Officer I have the responsibility to plan our communication efforts to our different audiences (public, media, contracted municipalities, etc). 

My day starts by checking the different media outlets (including social media) to look for any mentions or news about the organization and react if necessary. In a typical day you will find me designing a new flyer, checking that the website has updated information, answering media inquiries, and planning, planning, planning! 

This year is the ARL’s 70^th anniversary. How does the ARL plan to commemorate this? Can you tell us about some of the behind-the-scenes work it has taken to celebrate this special moment in time? 

70 years ago, Mary Archer had a mission: to save as many animals as possible in Berks County. That mission hasn’t changed much since then and we want people to know all the details about our history as we celebrate the anniversary.  

We have a 70^th Anniversary Committee working on many events that are going to happen from July 2022 (the month in which we were founded) through July 2023. 

Some of the many events that we are planning are burying a time capsule! We are currently producing a historic documentary for which we have interviewed many influential people that have been part of our history and the big celebration will happen during our Festival of Trees Gala in December. 

Follow us on social media to get news about all these events. 

What is one thing you wish people knew about your job? 

I wish people knew that public relations/communications takes a lot of careful planning to make sure that the messages we are putting out there are consistent to our mission and values. Also, I wish people realized that public relations is not propaganda, so my job is to always tell the truth and make sure that all our stakeholders are well informed about all the hard work that our staff do to save the animals and help the people of our community.

Tell us about a shelter animal you’ll never forget. 

Peanut, Sinatra, and Bella. On my second day on the job, I was told that I needed to bring 3 kittens to a Canadian TV show that was being filmed in PA. I’ve never had experience handling cats but I took on the challenge. They were the sweetest kittens ever although Peanut refused to be on camera. Two days later, Peanut became Nox… my first cat! 

We know everyone at ARL loves both, but we just want to know… Cats or dogs? 

All my life I’ve had dogs, chickens, bunnies, birds, and fish; everything but cats. Between dogs and cats, before working at the ARL, I considered myself strictly a dog person. Now, I go to the kitten room to decompress after a stressful day. 

Any last words of wisdom?

Mary Poppins is my favorite literature character and there are many quotes from the books, the movies and the Musical that I took as life mottos. So here are a couple: 

• “Anything can happen if you let it” 
• “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun” 
• “I’ll stay ‘till the wind changes” 
• “There’s nowhere to go, but up” 

• “Nothing is lost forever, only out of place”