Our Team
Susan Lapierre : Ambassadors for God’s Creatures Executive Director + Licensed Clinical Social Worker
Susan is a licensed clinical social worker with over 31 years of experience, dedicated to supporting individuals, families, and communities in a variety of clinical settings. She is currently in private practice with 'the sparrow's way'. Throughout her career, Susan has uniquely blended her professional expertise in social work with a deep love for animals and the people who care for them.
In 2016, after witnessing the urgent need for change in her community related to animal overpopulation, preventable suffering, and lack of accessible resources for pet owners, Susan founded Ambassadors for God’s Creatures. Under her leadership, the organization has developed a comprehensive array of life-saving and preventive programs, including spay and neuter assistance, Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) services, free pet food assistance, free vaccine clinics, foster and adoption programming, and a retail thrift shop offering discounted pet food and supplies.
Susan is also an experienced grant writer and community advocate, playing a key role in helping pass three local ordinances supporting community cat and TNR programming. Her mission is rooted in the belief that helping pet owners access essential resources not only improves animal welfare, but also strengthens families and communities by keeping pets safe, healthy, and out of the animal shelter system.
Susan is originally from Sanford, Maine and relocated to Anderson, Indiana in 2004. She is single and has two rescue dogs, Lucien and Charlie, as well as 16 cats, seven of which are feline leukemia positive. Her love for special needs kitties led to the renovations at her home to house these at risk felines, and she is committed to providing them with the best quality of life possible despite their grim diagnosis.
Sherri Keck : Claims Processor + Ambassadors for God’s Creatures Chair/President
Sherri is married to a remarkable man, Mark. Together they enjoy hiking, bicycle rides, traveling, outdoor concerts, going to wine and breweries. Between the two of them, they have a total of 4 kids and 4 grandkids with another one coming in August. Sherri and Mark have 2 furry babies. Charlie, who is a 7 yr old lovable mix terrier and Miss Kitty, who is a 12 year old mitten kitten. They are BBFs!
In her spare time Sherri is learning the guitar and loves to do crafts. She chose to work with AFGC because she is amazed at the work that they do for the local and surrounding communities. She sees that the organization and all of its volunteers have a passion to help animals. Sherri is impressed by the group of people who faithfully help the AFGC mission. She is proud to be a part of an organization for real change.
Connie Harris
Board Secretary + volunteer
Connie has three grown children and four adopted children at home. She is blessed with six granddaughters, four great grandsons, one great granddaughter, and one great granddaughter on the way. She has three dogs, two inside cats, a gecko, and three outside cats. She loves living her life in kindness, knowing that she can make someone’s life a little better from the smiles on their faces and the kindness shown to them.
She has been a part of Ambassadors since the beginning in 2016. Connie loves to see the changes and growth of AFGC over the past couple of years. It is a joy for her to know that she is helping pet parents love their pets and keep them healthier by spaying and neutering them. She is overwhelmed by the blessing that has come from being a part of Ambassadors and all of the support that she has received by being a part of it.
Amy Gates
Finance Analyst at Anderson University + Ambassadors for God’s Creatures Bookkeeper
Amy has been married to Rod “Chief” Gates for 10 years. She has a family full of love including her son, Evan Baker. She has a spoiled beagle mix rescue named Lucy, a sweet cat rescue named Larry, and an ornery cat rescue named Lenny, who was adopted from an Ambassadors adoption event held at a local Tractor Supply.
Amy has a heart for her whole family, obviously including pets! One year Amy’s son bought their cat, Lenny, a bowtie for Halloween. Lenny likes it so much that he thinks he has to wear one all of the time. It has become a tradition to buy him a new bowtie for each holiday season.
Amy began as a volunteer for Ambassadors nearly two years ago and has stayed because she believes in the mission.
Ambassadors Lead
Sharon is semi retired and has two adult sons and one furry son named Max, who is spoiled like no other cat. Sharon has worked at Ambassadors for the past three years and knows all aspects of the daily operations and is an asset to our organization. Sharon is hard working, dedicated, compassionate and a true team player, always giving 110% to our mission.
Sharon loves that our team works hard to help every customer that comes through our doors, who is seeking help for their pet. She is a strong advocate for responsible pet ownership and her deepest desire is for every animal to have a loving home.
Sharon Ward: Ambassadors Lead
Foster & Adoption Coordinator
Ashley is married to Chris Barrett and the two have great love and compassion for animals. They currently have 4 dogs, 3 FeLV positive kitties and plenty more cats, too many to count! Ashley works a full time job outside of Ambassadors and has worked with us since the spring of 2024. Her primary job is to oversee our foster program and facilitate adoptions. She also supervises the registration of new pet food pantry customers and works as a veterinary assistant in our weekly vaccine clinic and has been a valuable resource to our customers as she has extensive animal care knowledge, with over 15 years in the field.
Ashley loves the services Ambassadors provides for the community so pet owners can keep their pets in their homes and out of the shelter system. Her passion is to help the animals in any way that she can and she enjoys working directly with pet owners, providing education and resources so their pets live happy, healthy lives. Something that tugs on her heart strings is the vast number of animals that are euthanized each year in the shelters across the nation, and this motivates her to continue helping as many animals as she can through our services.
Ashley Barrett
Ashley Mann
Spay/Neuter and Donations Coordinator
Ashley is married to Jamie and they have a 10-year old daugther. Ashley has a house full of her own cats and dogs, and regularly pulls dogs from high kill shelters, works with trainers and other rescues to find the perfect placements for these hard to adopt dogs. Ashley joined the Ambassadors team in September 2024, and since then she has been a great addition to our team. She is highly motivated, personable and resourceful, as she networks with rescues, shelters, other animal welfare partners, local businesses and corporate donors, to bring resources and donations into our organization, to further help pet owners and animals who are most in need.
Ashley loves working with Ambassadors and being able to provide practical solutions, services and resources to pet owners in need so their pets remain with them and out of the shelter system their entire lives. Ashley's true passion is helping animals find safe and loving homes, and she especially enjoys helping the hard to adopt dogs that get overlooked in the shelter or have behavioral issues, pulling them and getting them happy and healthy again.
Ambassadors Associate
Amy joined the Ambassadors team in 2019 shortly after she began accessing our services as a customer. Since this time she has volunteered for many years in our pantry, distributing pet food to customers in need. She recently starting working with us as a paid employee, working in the store and continuing her work in the distribution room, keeping it clean and organized. Amy is generally very quiet but what they say about those quiet ones is true for Amy. You do have to watch her as she loves to joke around, tease and laugh with the team. She has a mischievous side to her that we all love. Amy is the sweetest soul and her heart is huge for the animals. She loves helping pet owners and their animals, with her deepest desire being to help decrease the pet population so all animals can live their best life in a forever home.
Amy is single and lives in Alexandria with her four dogs and 2 cats.
Amy Keesling
IT Specialist
Megan began as a volunteer shortly after Ambassador's opened. Megan supports social media, the website, data entry and various other digital needs.
Megan has always been an animal lover and has many cats, dogs, gerbils, chickens and Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches. Megan is also a cat foster for the Animal Protection League in Anderson.
Megan Ewing
Penny is the mother of triplets and Gigi to 5 Grands and mom of 2 cats. Penny works full time as a Life & Health Insurance Agent and helping people is her passion, especially seniors going on Medicare.
Penny loves to spend time in nature, with family and helping our organization save fur babies & educate on caring for them.
Penny is a great asset to Ambassadors for God's Creatures and currently focuses on securing corporate donations and partnerships.
Penny Heppen
Deb is a lifelong resident of Anderson. She has always had a deep affinity for animals of all species and sizes, and they have consistently responded positively to her. In the late 1980s, Deb relocated to downtown Indianapolis and during that time, she became recognized for operating a small petting zoo on Capitol Avenue. Following her recovery from lung cancer, which necessitated the removal of my upper left lobe, she returned to Anderson to be closer to my family and friends. This experience prompted a career transition from the food and beverage industry, which had been her sole professional focus. Deb then subsequently leveraged her passion for animals to establish her own pet-sitting business, Deborah Doolittle, which she currently owns and operates today. Concurrently, she began volunteering in the community, which led to her involvement with Ambassadors for God's Creatures and an invitation to join their board in the fall of 2025. Deb is eager to collaborate with dedicated individuals throughout the counties we serve, to benefit both the community and its animal population. Since joining the board she has helped with marketing of services and soliciting pet food donations and other needed resources for the organization. Deb currently does not have any pets of her own as she travels and does pet sitting in the homes of her clients, but to say that the animals love her would be an understatement.
Deborah McClaughlin
Store Associate
Kathy is married to John Cates. She has two children, 3 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren. Kathy loves her family, which also includes her beloved dog, Buddy and 5 cats. Kathy has been with Ambassadors for two years and when she is not at the front register serving our thrift shop customers, she can be found working our weekly vaccine clinic. What Kathy loves most about Ambassadors is the array of services we offer to the community and seeing so many people take advantage of them. She would love to see more people learn the importance of spay and neuter, and how it can reduce the pet population. She believes Ambassadors mission is driven by compassion and kindness towards both the pet owner and their pets.
Kathy Cates
Dennis Smith
Ambassadors Volunteer
Gary joined our team in January 2023. He and his wife, Rosemary had been loyal customers of our thrift shop for years. Gary had retired from the Anderson Public School System several years earlier, he then tried his hand at selling furniture and finally settled on spending his "golden years" working with our team. Gary picks up pet food donations from donors, transports cats for surgeries, and he also serves as our "door man" when our store is open. To say that Gary is a valued and respected team member would be an understatement. Gary is dependable, committed and always willing to help with any task that is asked of him. Gary says what he loves most about Ambassadors is "everything....very good people here doing good work....we help each other and in turn we help our customers and their animals". Gary has a huge heart for the animals and has 2 dogs, 5 cats and one bird. This is in addition to his human family, which includes his son who passed who away last year, a daughter, 7 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.