PAWS Chicago Heroes of the Year
by Alexis Fasseas | May 01, 2009
Ann Lurie, Charles Day, Julia Mickelson, Carol Walter
In the darkest hours, you shine light. You have answered a voiceless plea for help, saving countless lives and, one by one, working towards the day when all will live.
You are an inspiration. You are hope. You are a hero.
Ann Lurie
Lurie Spay/Neuter Clinic Seeds Chicago’s No Kill Transformation
Across the world there are living testaments to Ann Lurie’s heroism in the thousands upon thousands of lives she has touched through her hard work, her ceaseless philanthropy, and her inspiration to others who have resources to give. In Africa, she founded Africa Infections Disease (AID) Village Clinics, providing medical care and education to the Maasai people in rural Kenya and she has funded 30 rural schools in northern Ethiopia through One Love Africa. In Chicago, the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University and the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center are treating today’s cancer patients and researching cures for the future, while the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, currently under construction, will combine innovation, technology and proximity to top specialists in its location on the Northwestern University’s Streeterville medical campus. Her gift launched the Greater Chicago Food Depository Campaign and she co-founded Gilda’s Club to help develop support networks for the friends and families of cancer patients. And the Little Village based Lurie Family Spay/Neuter Clinic, offering low-cost and free surgeries for the pets of low-income families, will be largely responsible for eliminating the city’s pet overpopulation and building a No Kill Chicago within the next five years.
In early 2000, Ann saw the need and potential for a free and low-cost spay/neuter clinic in an under-resourced part of Chicago, and she made the leadership gift to the Lurie Family Spay/Neuter Clinic. It was the first major undertaking for PAWS Chicago, an organization that was launched with the Angels with Tails adoption event along Michigan Avenue and Oak Street in 1998. The purpose of this adoption event was to bring attention to the massive killing of homeless pets in Chicago, where 42,561 pets were euthanized in 1997 alone. While PAWS Chicago continued weekend adoption events around the city, founder Paula Fasseas knew that adoptions alone would never solve the problem of homeless pets if a never-ending stream of pets continued to enter the sheltering system.
However, fundraising for spay/ neuter was a challenging task. While people were generously contributing to savings homeless pets after they saw their sweet, innocent faces in need of help, donating funds to spay/neuter was less tangible. Ann Lurie, however, saw the importance and made the connection between spay/neuter and saving lives. “I believe in the PAWS Chicago mission,” says Ann, whose love for animals traces back to her childhood. “I was an only child, so dogs were very much my ‘friends’. I was one of those really sensitive kids who would weep at the plight of a sick or injured animal.”
Her sensitivity to animal issues has continued throughout her life, which is evident when she comments on what inspired her to become involved with PAWS Chicago: “I do not believe it is humane or human to euthanize a living creature because his owner no longer wants him or to euthanize animals who, for some reason, have fallen into the hands of the system.” In just less than nine years, the Lurie Clinic’s results are remarkable. Every year, the Clinic performs more surgeries, and the number of homeless pets killed in the city has precipitously fallen by more than 50%, to less than 20,000 pets each year.
The effect that spay/neuter has had on pet overpopulation is clear in comparative maps (see below) that reflect the number of stray calls by Chicago ward in 2001 and present day. After seeing the maps, Ann commented, “Prior to inception of the Lurie Clinic, a large number of strays and abandoned animals came from the neighborhoods bordering the clinic. Now that trend has changed completely.” She continued, “I believe most people want to take care of their pets, but for many, especially in the current economic climate, paying full price for a spay or neuter is just not an option. The Spay/Neuter Clinic provides an option and pet owners are obviously taking advantage of the service. It’s great to see that the concept works.”
On her recent visit to the Lurie Clinic, Ann formed a special connection with Willoughby, a seven-year old English Setter (seen in his suite in the Abbott Treatment Wing on page 39.) She is no stranger to falling for dogs. “Every time I visit any of the PAWS Chicago facilities or participate in events, I am first moved emotionally by the animals who need homes,” Ann continues, “but a strong second sentiment is appreciation for the passion of the volunteers and employees who work to make life more comfortable for the animals in the care of PAWS Chicago.”
Ann Lurie’s vision in the founding years of PAWS Chicago has led to a transformation in the sheltering system for the city’s homeless pets. “Helping to care for animals who are helpless and unable to take care of themselves is a wonderfully gratifying experience,” says Lurie. “I hope more and more people will consider becoming involved in this initiative.”
Thank you, Ann, for believing in PAWS Chicago and the No Kill vision and serving as an inspiration to engage many other pet-lovers in animal issues.
Charles Day
PAWS Chicago 2.0: Revolutionizing Shelter Data Management for a Digital World
Sitting at home watching “every heartbreaking minute” of the news coverage following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Charles Day and his wife, Chris Tardio, felt that they had to help. Charles recalls, “We heard on the radio that PAWS Chicago was bringing animals up from the South. It happened to be a ground breaking day at the Adoption Center site. We came along.” They volunteered to help at 26th street as the animals came in. Three weeks later they were still there, helping put systems and processes in place to deal with the thousands of applications for the several hundred animals that were rescued. Little did Charles know that four years later, he would be on the verge of transforming the way animal shelters operate.
Only months before Katrina, in spring of 2005, Charles and Chris had sold their international film editing company. They had the time and passion to get involved, but they didn’t stop at the surface. “PAWS Chicago convinced us that they had a plan that was more than trying to find homes for every unwanted animal. We built our business on a long-term strategy. PAWS Chicago has the same focus. We knew we could help with that.” After Katrina, they donated two rooms at the Adoption & Humane Center in honor of their beloved rescues, played an instrumental role in getting the Adoption Center ready in the weeks leading up to the Grand Opening in September of 2007, and spent countless hours helping homeless pets find new homes. Charles had to retire from volunteering with animals directly when he brought home their fifth dog, Summer, after an Angels with Tails event, so he began working behind-the-scenes. His resulting commitment to transform shelter operations has made him one of the 2009 PAWS Chicago Heroes.
Having managed 100 people in four cities in two countries, Charles notes that he “learned how to manage an organization across multiple locations and the importance of having platforms and systems to support a strategy.” He saw the need for a central data management system on his second day at PAWS Chicago during Katrina, “when the fax machine could not keep up with applications and there was paper and three-ring binders everywhere.” But after the Adoption Center opened, he recognized that a new system was essential in order for the organization to expand and no shelter management system on the market worked for the No Kill model that PAWS Chicago has created: “PAWS Chicago is a progressive organization. The way it looks at the world is different from anyone else out there. And in an industry in which there are few options for management systems to begin with, there is nothing that comes close to being able to support PAWS Chicago’s needs.”
With a unique perspective, the knowledge and resources to get a system built and a determination to make it happen, Charles spent hours with PAWS Chicago’s management and built a prototype, called BASE, that managed a pet’s journey through PAWS Chicago, from admission to medical and behavioral history to adoption and follow-up. Charles says that with the web-based application, “We’ll be able to keep track of adopters, their histories with every animal, analyze adoption rates, how to improve the adoption process, provide adopters with more specific histories on each animal, identify trends, reduce length of stays at PAWS Chicago. Whatever we can imagine, the system will be able to help us. It’s been built from the ground up, entirely for PAWS Chicago.”
Over two years, Charles has invested hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars in direct cost in getting the system ready to go live. But he is not done yet. He is now starting to lead the redesign and redevelopment of the PAWS Chicago website, planning to integrate it directly with the new system, which will automatically update animal availability, enable potential adopters to create applications and accounts online before coming to the Adoption Center, and bring PAWS Chicago to the “world of Web 2.0” as he calls it. Volunteers like Charles Day enable PAWS Chicago to stay at the forefront of transforming animal welfare.
Julia Mickelson & Carol Walter
Helping Homeless Pets for Years to Come: Launching the PAWS Chicago Desktop Calendar
Julia Mickelson and Carol Walter demonstrate the dedication and tireless work ethic of PAWS Chicago’s supporters that enabled the organization to grow from grass roots to a national model in less than a decade. As long-term supporters, with both Carol and Julia serving on the development board and Carol launching the inaugural Fur Ball as co-chair in 2002, they knew that PAWS Chicago faced growing budgetary demands with the opening of the Adoption Center in September of 2007. They recognized that the time was ripe to introduce a desktop calendar, inspired several years ago when they saw Aspen Animal Shelter’s calendar.
“We wanted to create this calendar because we needed a fundraising tool other than another event,” says Carol. “With the opening of the Adoption Center there also came more expenses and the need for more revenue.” By selling weekly and monthly tabs to pet lovers who wanted to feature their cherished dog(s) or cat(s) and then selling the finished product in retail locations throughout Chicago, Carol and Julia knew that there was great potential for PAWS Chicago to raise both funds and awareness.
Knowing that the PAWS Chicago employees were already committed to adoption and spay/ neuter efforts and organizing four major events each year, Julia and Carol took charge of the calendar project. They formed a committee in fall of 2007 and explored the economics of the project and created marketing materials and pricing schedules. In 2008 they began selling pages for the inaugural 2010 calendar.
The cover of the calendar was a live auction item at the 2008 Fur Ball, causing a heated bidding war between Ann Lurie and John Walter, Carol’s husband. The winning bid raised $25,000 and pronounced PAWS Chicago alumnus Bailey Walter as the first cover dog. “John and I have always had a least one dog since we married, but they were all pure bred Golden Retrievers. Bailey was our first mutt. He is so wonderful - gentle, sweet, playful, smart, loyal. The adjectives go on and on,” says Carol. “We just adore him and know that from now on we will always adopt. I truly believe that he knew he needed a home and in return he is totally committed to our family.”
Julia also offered her services as a pet photographer for the calendar, donating back the money collected for the shoot. “Every dog and cat has its own personality, much like humans,” says Julia. “It is amazing to capture the love, playfulness, and emotion in each pet’s eyes.”
It is that emotion and personality that has made the calendar such a moving tribute to pets, with beautiful photography and meaningful quotations throughout. It is available for purchase on PAWS Chicago’s website and in retail locations throughout Chicagoland.
Chicago’s homeless pets are forever grateful to Julia and Carol for taking the initiative to create an annual source of $200,000 of revenue for PAWS Chicago. This dynamic duo has committed to leading the calendar initiative once again for 2011.