A Story About How I Tried To Volunteer And It Didn't Go So Well!

We got my dog Trixie (the dog at my mom's house, not to be confused with Clover and Lily at Diana's house) from this place called Almost Home Foundation. They go to different high kill shelters, mostly in Illinois but also all across the USA, and rescue dogs and cats who are about to be put to sleep. Then they put them in "foster homes" where people work at getting them readapted to living in a household, and they try to find new homes for the animals.
Every weekend you'll find them at Petsmart stores, letting people interact with the animals and sharing information about them, in hopes that someone will want to take them home.
My school has this day called New Deal Day where everyone is supposed to do volunteer work. One of the options this year was to go volunteer with Almost Home for an afternoon. So I did, along with about ten other people from my school, and it went pretty well... so well that I signed up to volunteer on a regular basis! I got an email from someone telling me to go to the Petsmart near where I live.
So the next weekend, I showed up at Petsmart, ready to volunteer. When I told somebody that I was there to volunteer, he said, "Great! Stick with this girl!" and paired me with a girl who was about twelve years old. She was a pesky little girl who liked pretending that she was in charge, although she pretty much was getting in the way a lot. It was kind of odd, because the girl was supposed to be showing me the ropes, but she didn't really have anything to do, you know? That day I ended up helping one of the regular volunteers with a dog named Evan, and it turned out well.The young girl disappeared somewhere, although she'd occasionally reappear to tell me things like, "Thanks, I'll take over now!" and "Don't take any dogs outside. You're new, so I'll have to go with to supervise you." It was kind of strange.
That was last weekend.
This weekend I showed up there again. This time the little girl wasn't around, and the lady I had helped the week before wasn't there either. Everyone seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing, taking dogs and finding places to sit. I went up to the guy who was in charge and tried to get his attention, but he ignored me, talking to other people. I walked around a little bit, trying to figure out what to do, and then went back to the guy in charge. He was done talking to the one person, but as I walked up to him, someone else came up and loudly got his attention. I stood there for a long time. I started to feel so anxious, I felt dizzy and thought I might faint! 
Someone came up to him and handed him the leash of a little dog, saying he (the person, not the dog) had to leave for a minute. I bent down and petted the little dog. The guy in charge yelled to someone, "Sharon! (Not the person's actual name... I just made that up...) Find me a handler to take this dog!"
I stood up and said, "I can take him!" and reached out for the leash.
The guy ignored me, and continued to yell for Shannon, until she came to take the dog.
Crestfallen, I went outside and sat down on a bench. I was thinking of just going home. I would go home and find Diana and tell her the story, and she would make me feel better. But I really wanted to volunteer!
Then I heard someone say that the van full of dogs being transported had arrived. This is when the van that picks up dogs from high-kill shelters drives to no-kill shelters in the area and delivers the dogs to safety. Some of the dogs on the van were going to be getting off here, to get picked up by new foster families.
I walked over to the van, approached the first lady I saw, and said, "I'm a volunteer! I can help, but I don't know what to do!"
"Great," said the lady, "you can help unload the van!" So I helped a few people unload dogs, in crates, onto a grassy area. The dogs were all barking and crying, so I tried to calm a few down, by putting my hand near the bars of the crate and talking to them.
Then another lady walked by and said, "Honey, please don't touch the dogs, okay?" She joked with another woman, "I'm like, don't contaminate my animals!"
Crestfallen again, I stood up and backed away.
Other people from Almost Home were coming over and getting dogs out of the crates, to bring them in. I stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Everyone knew exactly what was going on, and nobody looked at me or spoke to me.
Finally a lady who had to go in and use the bathroom asked if I'd hold the leash of a dog named Nash. Nash made it all worth while! As soon as he saw that someone new was holding his leash, he jumped up to lick me, then flopped on the ground for a belly rub, wagging all of his big paws in the air. I spent about twenty minutes playing with Nash, until the lady came and took him back.
Then I stood there awkwardly for a while, until someone told me, "We're all done!"
I went back into the store, and just walked around petting the dogs for a while, and was mostly ignored by everyone.
This happens to me a lot... I tend to be invisible, or I appear so nervous and so awkward that people try to avoid me. It also doesn't help that I look so young for my age. Sometimes people mistake me for a kid.
Anyways, I always have an odd way of tackling problems. I still want to go back and volunteer, but I don't want to be ignored, and I know I will again have trouble knowing what to do. So I decided to make some T-shirts on Cafe Press that I can wear to call attention to the fact that there is a reason why I appear to be acting strangely.
I'm hoping that when I wear these T-shirts, people will maybe recognize that I've been there every Saturday, and they'll realize that I might need a little help getting started, and maybe they'll actually, like, give me a specific job to do, or let me handle a dog.
You can view, or even order, the T-shirts I made, if you want! Here are the links to them!
The first T-shirt is the one I made first and the one I'm going to order for myself first.

This one is a nod to all of my awkward moments.

I also made a couple ADHD T-shirts.... This one and this one.

Let me know how you like them!
I'm going to order the first one this week, after I put some money on my debit card, and I'll wear it proudly!