Bridget Wolfe

I attribute my success to empathy, persistence, adaptability, and my lifelong passion for helping both people and animals. Getting diagnosed with ADHD back in October of last year really helped me understand myself a lot better and helped me understand why I'm able to do everything that I do. I've been able to bring all the gifts that I've accumulated in my life to animal rescue - using my treat business to raise money, my partnership with my work to get animals vetted, and my sociology background to connect with people and build a foster network. I think just having the ability to use my ADHD and my connections and my resources to be able to do good for the world is probably the greatest gift that I've been able to accumulate over my lifetime. My personal life experiences, including my health challenges with hip dysplasia and hip reconstruction surgeries when I was in my twenties, and raising a family, shaped my perspective and strengthened my desire to create meaningful impact through service and compassion-driven work. My husband also played a huge role - he's a very logical engineer Type A person who supported me through difficult times and helped me realize that I needed to re-engage my mind and think about what I wanted to do with my life in a way that would be sustainable.

One of the most impactful lessons I learned came from my husband and also through my experience with SCORE mentorship. My husband gave me the best advice that I think every kid should hear: what do you want to do with your life? Because there's no point in going to college and just getting a degree if you don't know what you want to do after you're done. He helped me gear my thoughts into realizing that I love helping people - it's my greatest gift and passion - and that I should get a degree that would help me do that. Through my SCORE mentor, I also learned something powerful, even though we disagreed. He kept telling me that I wasn't going to make any money with my business model of donating 50% of sales, and that it wasn't a good long-term plan. But I realized that my main goal wasn't for it to be a money-making operation - my main goal was to be able to give back as much as I can. That taught me that success doesn't always have to be measured by maximum profit. Staying aligned with purpose, values, and impact creates far more fulfillment than simply focusing on financial growth alone. My parents also taught me this - neither of them went to college, but they both started their own successful businesses, and they were under the impression that college isn't absolutely necessary if you find something you're passionate about and are able to actually be successful in that passion.

I would encourage young women to trust their instincts, stay compassionate, and never underestimate the value of authenticity and relationship-building. I really value human connection - with my sociology major, I just love connecting with people, and I've been able to connect with a variety of different people in my area to foster for me and support the work I do. I think that's honestly how I feel like I've been successful - connecting with people, and then the opportunities just come organically through that, which is really cool. I would also say that helping professions and rescue work require strong boundaries and being mindful of where you're investing your time. I'm so empathetic, and I do struggle with boundaries, and I have a very addictive personality - it's hard for me to turn it off sometimes. Empathy has gotten me in a lot of trouble in my own life because it drains me. A friend who's a therapist taught me that empathy is seeing someone down below you that's struggling and getting into the struggle with them, but sympathy and compassion are wanting to pull that person out of that struggle. So I'd say focus on compassion rather than getting lost in empathy. You need emotional resilience and the willingness to advocate for what matters, even when it's difficult. And don't be afraid to stay true to your mission - I've worked with a lot of shelters and rescues that are a little bit too big for their breeches and lose sight of the main mission. Stay focused on what really matters.

The ongoing challenges facing animal rescue organizations are really significant. There's overcrowding, limited resources, and emotional burnout - rescue is really hard, and it's really draining, and it's something that I have to put up boundaries for. The stray population, especially down in the Rio Grande Valley right on the border, is pretty horrifying. There's a lack of education, and I think it's just a cultural difference that pets are not really held at a high standard, so the stray population is bad down there. There's also an increasing demand for foster and rescue support, and there just aren't enough of us to carry the weight. If more people were willing to help, those of us that are wouldn't have to carry so much of the weight of the world, and it would spread out the investment that so many of us have to make. At the same time, I see tremendous opportunity in community collaboration, building networks of people who are willing to foster and support rescue work. Online fundraising through my treat business has been really successful, and I've been able to create a positive pipeline where rescuers in the Rio Grande Valley do initial vetting, get the fosters up to me in Austin, and then I do the vetting through my work. There are also great opportunities in partnerships between veterinary organizations and local rescue groups - my workplace donates $7,000 to me every year for this work. I'm especially passionate about helping smaller rescues - the Tiny But Mighty ones - that create direct, hands-on impact within underserved communities. Those are the people that are really pouring their heart and soul into it and staying mission-focused and community-centered, rather than the bigger organizations that sometimes lose sight of the main mission.

The values most important to me are empathy, compassion, honesty, integrity, and leaving situations better than I found them. My mom always taught me, don't leave a room - leave a room better than you found it, and that's kind of how I move throughout my life. I think empathy is really important, and compassion is super important. I think more people should be more compassionate, and wanting to make each day and your surrounding areas better each day is really important. Doing right by others is a core value for me. I believe deeply in helping underserved animals and supporting smaller organizations that stay mission-focused and community-centered - the Tiny But Mighty rescues where people are really pouring their heart and soul into it and not losing sight of the main mission. I really value human connection and just love helping others, including animals and people. Personally, I value being a present mother - my focus for the next 5 to 10 years is really being a good mom and helping my kids navigate the world in the best way that I can. I also value maintaining healthy boundaries and being mindful of where I'm investing my time, putting enough into the people who are my foundation, because if I didn't have my foundation, I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing. And I value using my talents and gifts to create positive change - being able to show my kids the ability to care about something outside of yourself is so powerful.