A Lifeline for Pet Owners In Need: The Story of Paws NY

Welcome to the Starlight Pet Talk podcast, where we'll talk about and explore ways to help pet parents and future pet parents learn everything they need to know to have a happy and healthy relationship with their pet. So sit up and stay for Starlight Pet Talk rescue, adoption and pet parenting done right.

Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, amy Castro, and I'm sure that everybody out there listening is feeling the pinch of the increased cost of caring for pets these days, whether it's food prices that have seemingly skyrocketed or the cost of trips to the vet or to the groomer, they can really add up. But what if you found that you could no longer afford the care your pet needed, or if you had physical constraints or mobility issues or lack of transportation? What would you do then? Well, luckily for those who live in New York, my guest today is somebody that they can turn to, as well as her fabulous organization. As the founder and director of Paws New York, rachel Herman has been in the nonprofit sector for more than 15 years. She previously worked in development at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the ASPCA as we all know it, and founded Paws New York in 2008, transitioning to leading the organization full-time in 2012. During her time at Paws New York, rachel has been named. She's got a lot of people paying attention to her, so she's been named New Yorker of the Week by New York. One Holiday Hero by the New York Times, 40 Under 40. Rising Stars in the Nonprofit World by NYN Media and Young Social Impact Hero by Thrive Global. Rachel lived in New York City for 17 years, the last 13 in Brooklyn, but recently relocated to Connecticut with her husband, her two young daughters and their cat, milo. So, rachel, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited.

As I was going back through, those accolades that you've received. Is that kind of overwhelming? It's just to not only have the reach and impact that you have in starting and leading a nonprofit, but to have the eyes of New York City on you.

Yeah, it's a little funny. I'm a relatively modest person, I think, so I'm generally kind of uncomfortable, but at the end of the day I may sort of receive some public recognition, but the people on the ground doing the work are the ones who really deserve the recognition. Our program team on the ground are volunteers. I mean, we have thousands of volunteers. They're all doing this. Thanks to them that the organization is able to even receive the recognition that we do receive, because that's how people learn about what we're doing. So obviously really honored when the organization does receive any kind of recognition and sort of feel like, you know, it's just my job to advocate for the work we're doing and help even more people learn about what we're doing in New York City.

Yeah, that's. I feel like we do that on a small, on a much smaller scale here with the rescue. Yeah, you do tend to get the focus on you, but it takes an army, you know, I hate to even say a village. It takes an army because you got to really be, really be working it on a daily basis. So you were obviously very active in the ASPCA. What made you decide to start PAWS, new York?

So I was in grad school at NYU, actually before I started working at the ASPCA, and it was, yeah, and it was during my time there, in sort of the last semester of my two year program, where I came up with the idea for PAWS and I would walk to class every day and there was a young couple who was always sitting outside of a local grocery store, who you know I don't think they had a home. They had their pet with them and it broke my heart to think that this couple may be sacrificing a warm bed at night because of their strong relationship and love for their animal, because at the time homeless shelters wouldn't allow pets, and so that that couple was really the catalyst for me to start thinking about who else lives in this city and benefits so greatly from that relationship they share with their animal, but who may be struggling on a day to day basis for sort of the basic care and who may be facing obstacles. And so I really sort of immediately started to think about older adults and how you know New York City as people age, how it might become more and more difficult to kind of do some of the daily tasks that maybe at one point we took for granted and didn't think twice about. But now, as we're dealing with mobility limitations and things that life's just throwing at us, we now may face the decision where maybe we feel like we have to give up our pet because we can't provide that daily care for them. And so I started to do some research, really think about what the need was in New York City. I couldn't believe that I couldn't identify any other sort of existing organization providing the kind of ongoing physical care I had in mind. You know you think New York City has everything and you know so. It was then in my second semester of my final year in grad school where I came up with the idea, and you know it was a passion project of mine for several years. I graduated, I got my. It was my dream job at my dream organization, doing fundraising for the ASPCA, and so Paws was really a night and weekend lunch break project for me for almost four years, and so I was Doing client intakes after work, I was training volunteers after work, I was doing the matching on the weekends, really trying to build up a program that at the time was mostly focused on Human resources rather than financial resources. So what kind of assistance could I provide the people in need in New York City. That didn't require a ton of money at first, because I didn't have that to give, but I did have the time. And so, yeah, you know, I, I, I spent from 2008 until 2012, with the help of an amazing board of directors and Critical volunteers at the beginning, really building the foundation of the organization, and then, in January 2012, we were fortunate enough to receive a grant that allowed me to transition full-time, and so, yeah, and so I've spent my time since January 2012 really building the organization, growing our team, growing our volunteers, growing our impact. And we're still small. We're still small organization, but there is such a huge need in New York City just tens of thousands of people who would need our help. And so, you know, we're grateful for opportunities like this where we can raise awareness for the work we're doing, because, you know, it's not just in New York that people have this need, but it's everywhere, right. And so anything that I can do to help other people think through how can I start a program like this? What can I do to help my neighbor who has a pet? I want to be there to help make any impact that I can.

Yeah, and that's that's great. I know that when, when we were first talking, you know we were talking about the fact that you know you're in New York, I'm here outside of Houston. You know how can we, how can we make those connections? But Houston faces many of those same issues that you've brought up. Obviously, homeless, homelessness is a big issue in the city of Houston and I mean I don't think a day goes by if you travel the Houston freeways especially, that you will see. I mean you don't even have to go looking, you know you will see homeless people looking for opportunities to get money for food and they oftentimes they have children, pets, right out there, right out there with them, in all kinds of weather. And that's just a small percentage of the people that probably need help, like you're talking about, seniors, older people, or most of them are gonna be on on a limited income with the mobility issues. You know there might be somebody in your apartment building right now, wherever you're living, for those who are listening, or you're in your neighborhood, who needs assistance like this because they can't get out and about and they don't even necessarily Know who to turn to. And, like you said such a good point when you went, when you go looking for something like that, is there something specific that is going to be able to to help that person? So, yeah, it's uh, yeah, it's a huge issue.

It is, and you know, for us everything we do is done with like. We believe pets are family, essentially right, and that Families with pets should not be forced to separate because of the physical and financial obstacles that you're facing. And so, you know, here at pause, new York, our focus is on People who are facing both physical and financial obstacles. So all of our clients fall below a certain income level. They don't have the financial means to Hire somebody to come in and help them with their daily pet care. And they're also facing a physical obstacle, whether it's limited mobility Due to advancing age, whether they're, you know, living with an illness or disability of some kind. But they need help and that help is going to enable them to keep their pet for as long as possible and that's better for everybody involved. That's better for the person, that's better for the pet. And we're also keeping pets out of the shelter system, so making space for other animals who really need that space to find their forever homes. And so when we talk to Our clients, like many of them will talk about their pets as if their family, as if they're there, in many cases their sole source of companionship. You know, you think about it, and when someone's coming to us because they don't have a Network of support who can help them with their animals, and so these are people who don't have Family and friends nearby who can really jump in and help them, and so that's what we're trying to do through a really extensive and committed network of volunteers who in many ways, become like family To the people that they're helping, and it's really beautiful to see these Incredible relationships that develop between the humans here the, the clients and the volunteers, and then also with the pets as well. So we love hearing stories and and Seeing the relationships that develop, sort of like having like a surrogate family member that you're bringing in by Becoming a part of our organization.

Yeah, that's, and it sounds like there's kind of a longer term commitment to the services that you're providing with people to allow people to form those relationships. Yeah, so what exactly are your volunteers and what is your organization doing for your clients? Can you give us an idea of the types of services that you provide?

Yes, absolutely. We have several programs. What we consider our core program is our house call program, and that's where volunteers, on an Ongoing and consistent basis, are going into the homes of our clients and helping with daily pet care. So that's dog walking, litter box maintenance. It might be administration of medication, putting out food and water. Our most typical assignment is a dog walking assignment. Dogs need to be walked multiple times a day and they need a schedule, whereas for cat care, if it's a litter box maintenance, it doesn't always have to be the exact same time Every single day. There's a little bit more flexibility there, and so we do ask volunteers when they're making a commitment. It has to be a recurring shift at the same day and time every week. So, for example, on Mondays at 6 pm they're matched with a particular client and every Monday at 6 pm they visit that client and they walk their dog right, and so it's very important for volunteers to understand that, while we know things happen and occasionally you might have to miss a shift, that's okay, we all have our own lives that we also can't have a revolving door of Volunteers coming in and out of our clients homes. Consistency is very important. Some of our clients you know, or older, maybe they're dealing with memory issues, things like that. We need our clients to feel safe and secure and to know who's coming in and at what time and what day. So through our house call program, when we meet with a client, we determine what is the ideal Schedule look like so in a given week maybe it's 14 visits, it's a morning shift and it's an evening shift. We will do everything we can to match them with Sometimes it's 14 different volunteers, other times it's fewer, with some volunteers doing multiple shifts, at a minimum of volunteers doing one shift a week. So we will build up their schedule as best as we can. Some neighborhoods and some pets end up having more volunteers interested in them, just again because of, maybe, the convenience of the location, that it's central, and so clients typically come to us through the house call program and then they have access to our other programs. So once somebody's in as a house call client, we donate pet food and supplies. Some of the pets in our program are on prescription diet. That's really expensive, and so we'll come in and help them be able to Ensure that their pets are receiving that and that people aren't choosing to. You know like sometimes somebody has to make a decision Am I going to feed myself or am I going to feed my pet, or I'm gonna give my pet some of my food because I can't afford pet food? We certainly don't want that. We want to make sure both the person has the resources they need for their own food and that their pet is getting the food that's right for for him or her, the proper nutrition for a cat or a dog or whatever the pet might be. And we we highly Personalize the pet food. So it's not just this is the pet food we have, this is what we're sending to you. We work with each client and each pet to make sure it's the pet food that makes sense for that animal, and a lot of that food we have shipped directly. But we also utilize volunteers. When we have donations they're sent to us. We have volunteers who can do home deliveries. We also have a veterinary care program. So through our vet care program we work with that's around the community who give a discount, but then we also pay for vet care as well. Every year it depends on what our funding looks like and that will determine how much money per pet that we are able to allocate, and then we have some additional funds for emergencies. So, for example, we actually had a pet who was in foster care recently and had such severe dental disease that his jaw broke and that's a really serious injury and the jaw had to be repaired and it was a very expensive surgery and we covered most of that. We had a partner come in and help fund part of that as well and sort of together we made sure that that pet was able to receive the medical care he needed to live, because it was a life-saving surgery. And then we you know, we do wellness exams, vaccinations, things like that, and really work with our clients to make sure that they can access all of the Resources in our community that might be available to them. And then we also have a foster care program. This is if a client is facing a medical crisis, they're going into the hospital, they're going to rehab. They don't have anyone to take care of their pet. We will make sure their pet is taken care of so they can focus on themselves. We have found that often people won't go to the hospital and take care of what they need to recover and be healthy because they don't have somebody to take care of their animal. And I understand that you love your pet. Your pet is your family member and you're not gonna leave your pet home alone. But at the same time we don't want our human clients making these huge sacrifices that really could have such a negative impact on their lives, and so we provide them the peace of mind that our volunteers are vetted, they're trained and then when they are home and they feel comfortable, we'll reunite them with their animal. And our foster care program is actually something over the last few years we've expanded so you do not have to be a house call client to have access to that. It is open to the general public, as long as people meet the qualifications to be a client, which is having a physical need, which they do if they're in the hospital, and then meeting our financial requirement as well, so falling below a certain income level. And so if somebody learns about us but they're not already receiving services and they come in and they go through our intake process and they qualify, then we will put their pet and foster care and then reunite them when they return home. So all of our services are really about eliminating the obstacles that pet guardians in New York City are facing and making sure that these families can stay together for as long as possible.

Yeah, that's a lot of services that you're providing there, but I am curious with the foster care program, because we do get a lot of people who reach out to us looking for temporary help and my biggest fear is what if you can't come back for your pet? Do you run into those issues? We?

do we do? What we have found is that I'm a data person. I really like numbers. It helps me understand sort of what our impact is. And when I look at our foster care cases for our, like, active house call clients and I compare them to the foster cases for the unknown individuals who are coming to us because they need the one-time foster care but we didn't have an existing relationship, we are seeing that there is a higher percentage of surrender cases, for whatever reason that might be. We're having a higher success rate in terms of reunification with the clients. We know We've talked about why we think that is. I think for the clients who are known to us, many of them have case management. They have social workers. We've been in there for a long time helping them, so I think that they may have more support and this is just I'm not saying this as fact, it's just sort of a guess because we're trying to figure out why this is the case, whereas maybe somebody who's coming to us who has the medical need that's a one-time, perhaps they have less support because they weren't, they didn't know about us prior, who knows what their situation is. But we have noticed that and not all the cases can lead to a reunion. That's the reality. That's. Our goal, of course, is to keep these families together, but the reality is that doesn't always happen and when that's the case for us, we are taking responsibility over rehoming that pet, and so that is always a conversation we have with any client is what plans have you made? In many cases they don't have plans because if they did, most likely they wouldn't need us for the short-term foster right, because the person who would take their pet for the long-term would be able to step in. Every once in a while there is a family member, a distant family member or a neighbor who says they'll take the pet in, and for most of our cases we're looking for a new home. Our volunteers in some cases will adopt them. The foster who is fostering them sometimes adopts them, but they become attached and then they decided, okay, like this pet has already been a part of my family for, say, two months and I'd like to make that permanent. In other cases we have to rely on our network to spread the word to find the right home, and one thing that's very important to us is not just placing an animal into any home, placing animal into the right home and the best home we can find. So we'll often have multiple adopters and it's not just okay, you came to us first, but we really think about the needs of the pet and what the home that would be best for them. Like, a lot of these animals have never lived with other animals, they've never lived with children. Many of them have separation anxiety, which is another thing. Right If their guardian was homebound, which many of our clients are, they're not used to being home alone. And that's actually something we do too is we'll hire trainers and behaviors to kind of come in and help with the areas that we can help with. But yeah, I mean, it's an unfortunate reality that some of these pets do have to be rehomed and we've been very lucky in having great success in finding homes. But it is a lot of work. It's a lot of time that our team has to be advertising. And now you've become a rescue Exactly right. So there's no other choice, or else we wouldn't be able to provide the foster care.

Yeah, and it's the balancing. When you were starting to talk about statistics, I thought you know it's like sometimes you have to look at the odds or you know what is the track record of that, and as you were talking, I was just kind of like summarizing some things in my head. A lot of times, from a rescue perspective, you know, we get calls for help from people probably very, very similar to your clients, with very similar issues, looking to surrender their pet, and we help where we can to keep pets in homes. We've done medical care, things like that. But what you're talking about is a whole another level of service and I'm wondering have you ever faced any critics, naysayers because I see this a lot, especially on social media, when you put out a plea for help for somebody and they're like well, if they can't afford to take care of their pet, they shouldn't have one. There probably are people out there that would say, hey, you know, if somebody can't feed their pet, they can't afford vet care, they can't take it out and take care of its basic needs, maybe it's best for them not to have a pet, because not everybody can get a service like this. What are your thoughts on that? I'm sure you have.

Yeah, I will say that, fortunately, I don't believe that we receive a lot of comments like that. I think part of it is that we do share individual stories but at the same time, the emails and the posts that we're sending out every day are not always this is a client and this is their story. We're really focused on, kind of like what the big picture is. Right, the fact that we're keeping families together. Obviously, any pet that we can keep at home with somebody who actually loves them is a win. Right, because what is the alternative? Relinquishing that animal to a local shelter, if they even have the space for your animal, and then what? Also, then you're taking up the space of another animal. So you pointed out, when you're sort of asking the question, right, what we're doing is very comprehensive and In my opinion and this is how we've sort of operated from the very beginning we are all about quality over quantity. Yes, I want to help everyone who needs help. For that, the end of the day, the metric that matters to us as an organization is how many families are we keeping together, how many pet can stay at home and aren't being relinquished? So you know, you can match one volunteer with one person who needs dog walking. But if they need dog walking help every single day and all you all we're giving them is one shift, Is that really making a difference for them? Is it nice, yes. Is it helpful, yes, but is it making the difference that that person needs? And I would say it's not right. And so for us, we never want to take on a house called client if we don't feel like we can give them enough help. And sometimes somebody comes in and They'll start with a little bit less and we'll work our way up. Or and we're very open we maybe will say you know what? You live in a neighborhood where we've been struggling to find volunteers, so you need to understand that from the beginning. But our goal is to fill your schedule as quickly as possible. And so, again, like we're just very focused on comprehensive, ongoing support most of our clients and I understand that this is maybe different than to have some other Organizations operate and it's just a different philosophy but for most of our clients we're coming in and we're helping them, either until the client passes away or the pet passes away. It's often not a short-term thing. In some amazing cases, you know, maybe a client comes to us and they're sick and they're you know an example maybe they're going through chemo and they need help while they're going through treatment and they get better and they don't need our help. That is would be an amazing result of our services. That's, unfortunately, just not how it usually works. Most of our clients are older adults. In many cases their mobility is not going to improve, so they do need our help for the long term. And so when we bring somebody on, we're doing it knowing that we could be helping them for years. I mean, we have one, a client, that's been with us since almost the beginning. We've been helping her for more than 10 years with her dog. Her dog was a puppy and now is a senior dog right, and so it's. It's a big commitment and any kind of growth we have as an organization we are only comfortable doing if we're doing it in a way that is not Taking services away from existing clients. It's only expansion, it's quality of care, not quantity for us, which in some cases, if you know you, if you look at our we could help so many more people and just Do it because we could say, oh, we helped ex people, but what kind of help are we really giving them? We wanted to be enough help that keeps their pet with them, because that's why we're here Right?

Well, yeah, and I think long term, just in life, in general right, quantity is always going to be trumped by quality. You know we struggle with that in rescue. It's like Theoretically could I bring in more animals, but there's downside to doing that, you know especially if you have limited you know limited resources to spread. Is it better to provide Much better care for this animal or very, very basic care for right animal? Definitely a juggling act. So you mentioned the client that started off with the puppy and you know now the dog is a senior. Are there any other stories or maybe some more details on that, on that story where you say to yourself this is the Like, this is the reason we exist, this story, this client is situated obviously not naming any names, of course.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I have several that. Stick with me. I'll tell you at least one. You know I started this organization because I wanted to help people keep their pets. But what and I alluded this, alluded to this a little bit earlier, but the relationships that develop between the client and the volunteer, the power of those really took me by surprise. So a huge Benefit of what we do and it's not, again, the primary reason why we exist, but it's there's the safety net. Right now, somebody who maybe was very isolated, didn't have a lot of visitors, is now, you know, has 14 different Volunteerships a week and those are 14 relationships that they're developing. And you know, as I mentioned many of our clients, they don't have a lot of family or friends, right, and so these Bonds that form are really beautiful. We have clients and volunteers who spend holidays together. One client that and this was years ago, and at that time I was doing, I was more involved in the day-to-day because our staff Is much smaller, and so I I knew every single client so well. I knew every single volunteer, and we had this wonderful client, it's wonderful dog, and I would talk to him on the phone all the time. He would always call me and we'd always have a chat and his volunteers loved him and when he passed away, there was a small service for him and I attended because I had gotten to know him very well and there weren't a lot of people in attendance. Again he, he had a small network and Most not all, most of the people there were pause volunteers. Oh, and I remember being there and looking around and just being so like overwhelmed with emotion because I, like, I realized how important these relationships Were to this man and and I knew it, but in that moment and and Understanding and like knowing what he went through at sort of the end of his life, and the volunteers were there and hearing them Tell stories, the volunteers telling stories of the client, I mean it was just beautiful and his dog was an older dog, a dog I Did not think would be easy to re-home a 16 year old golden retriever and and we found this amazing woman who lived upstate, who had incredible like experience with older animals. She adopted this dog. She drove, you know, all the way down to New York City, brought her back up, started doing like therapy in the water for the arthritis, I mean, and and gave this dog like a beautiful, I think she. She lived for maybe another year and no longer than that, because she was very old herself and had some health issues. But it was just every aspect of this case just Showed how amazing our community is, from the client to the pet, to the volunteers, to the adopter, like everybody just worked together and this really amazing way. So so that's one case. I just, you know it just really put things in perspective, and a big part of our training for volunteers is not, oh, but pet care focused. It's focused on the person. You know, helping volunteers prepare for what they're going to be walking into on the first day that they show up for a shift, because they need to know that this is a person that they're helping and they're making a really important commitment, and that person might be dealing with a health issue that maybe they've never had to. You know, never come into contact with somebody. For example, maybe the client has dementia and the volunteers doesn't, doesn't really understand what that means. So it really is our job to prepare our volunteers as best as we can. So so that's one example. Another example I'll try and tell this story quickly, but we had a volunteer who was walking a dog four times a week, and this was several years ago too, and the volunteers showed up one day and the client didn't answer the door, which he found strange because they'd been there this day earlier and the client knew who was coming. And you know, long story short, the volunteer was able to find the super, who led him into the building and the client apparently had suffered a stroke, and so they had to call 911 and the prognosis did not look good. And then, a couple days later, I'm sitting at my desk and my phone rings and it's the client from his hospital bed calling me. And I couldn't believe it because I, honestly, I just I didn't think he had survived. And so that was the case where it really hit me that, well, like our volunteers have a lot of responsibility, yeah, that that volunteer could have just walked away that day. And so you know, we can't predict every situation that's gonna happen. Something like that is not typical situation, but we have to use common sense. If, if we're feeling a little uncomfortable, like communication is so, so important, we tell volunteers if there's anything that is concerning them for any reason, to please communicate it to us and we'll figure out, you know, what the right next steps are, and so we just have, like the most incredible volunteers and they. They are the reason that that we can do this work.

That's amazing. Yeah, it's a whole nother. It's a whole nother thing beyond. You know what we think about in volunteering and rescue, where it's the whole animal care side of things, because the you know, the people side is more difficult. There's, yeah, a lot to it that that, like you said, brings on a whole nother level of commitment. So, speaking about commitment, I happened to be born and raised in New York and so I've got a lot of my people who are still back there friends, family and just other listeners. So if somebody is in the New York area, what are some ways that they can get involved?

Yeah, so there are a few different ways to get involved. I mean first, you know, visiting our website. Our website is pauseandwhyorg and there's a lot of great information on there. We do two volunteer orientation sessions every month. They're virtual, so you don't have to come to our office in Manhattan. You can do it from the comfort of your home, from a phone or a computer. Information on those sessions can be found on the volunteer page of our website. So for anybody who has, you know, a free 30 to 60 minute window once a week in their schedule, I encourage you to check that out. We also have one-off opportunities for volunteering like a vet transport. I talked about foster care. So there are other ways to get involved if that weekly commitment is just a little too difficult for your schedule. So, volunteering following us on social media we are a small organization but we're doing a lot and there's a lot more we would like to do. And a really great way to help us do that work is to help us raise awareness. So that's following us on Instagram, on Facebook, and our handle is at pauseandwhy. So that's a great way to stay up to date on what we're doing, learning about some of the clients, just generally making sure that you know what's going on. We share information about events and then, finally, you know, making a donation for people who want to support what we're doing. As I said, there's a lot more we want to do. We provide a lot of services and they cost money. So any level of support obviously is greatly appreciated, and we have a donate button on our website so that's sort of the easiest way to do that. But really just telling people you know about us the awareness piece is so critical. If people don't know about us, they can't make a donation, they can't volunteer, they can't refer their neighbor for services, right. So that's kind of key to everything that we do.

Yeah, and that's definitely you know. For the rest of us who are not in the New York area, we can definitely help with that awareness Because you never know who's on your page. You know who might live nearby or might have the funds to be able to donate and want to get involved in that way. So it's that whole awareness thing I know we push that all the time. It's like you don't even have to give $5 on $5 Friday.

Share this post and maybe one of your friends has five bucks to spare, kind of thing.

Just, you know the sharing is huge. And I don't think people realize how that little click of a button can make such a huge difference.

Yeah, it really can.

And the other day, when we were speaking, I know one of the big words that I wrote down on I don't know if you said it, if I said it, if somebody else said it or if it just came into my head was this concept of community. You know, we can sometimes lose that when we live in big cities like New York and Houston. I think that COVID definitely impacted many people's, not only your physical abilities to create community, but I think it's kind of changed us and made us a little bit more isolated and self-focused than maybe we need to be. And I think, even if a community didn't have an organization like Paws New York, do you have thoughts or advice as to what we can do to just be better when it comes to folks in need?

Yeah, I mean absolutely. You know I lived in New York City for 17 years and I will admit I was somebody who you know I'm on the subway and I'm just staring down on my phone commuting home. But I think, for me and for our organization, right, we're here because we want to keep families together and part of our vision statement is sort of the idea that we want to live in a community where we take care of each other. Our end goal is not to exist. If we could put ourselves out of business because there were enough kind neighbors to take care of their own neighbors, like our services wouldn't be needed. And so it's really easy to kind of get stuck in our own world, in our own bubble, especially when we're sort of walking outside and we're close to our apartment. But to keep an eye out, you know, yeah, you might have a neighbor who lives on your floor, different floor in the building next to you, and they might need help. And even just a little bit of help is better than no help, right. And so really thinking about how can we help each other. You know, the last three plus years isolation has been, had been so heightened and for our clients, many of them were already very isolated. But what I think has changed is that for those who weren't isolated before the pandemic, maybe they understand just how negative an impact isolation can really have on somebody's life. And so to really think about that and think about what can all of us do to make a difference in our community and to the people around us. Everybody has a support system of family and friends who are able to help them out. And so what's? I don't know where, it's not interesting, but you know, unfortunately, some of the need our clients face is hidden because many of many of our clients are homebound, right, and if somebody is homebound then you don't see them, you don't see the need, but you know, if you live in a building, you might know that there's somebody who's in there, right, knocking on, you know, knocking on their door or slipping a note under their door asking if they need something, checking in on them during a heat wave, going beyond the services we provide, right, but like, let's just like, take care of each other as best we can. Can't all do everything for everybody.

But you know as much as we can Exactly. I mean it could be that neighbor that you see. You know we're in more of us. I'm more in a suburban rural area, but it's like you know, if you normally saw that neighbor out in the yard or walking their dog in the morning on your way to work and now suddenly you haven't seen them for a while. Like you said, knock on the door. Do you guys work with and this again may or may not include but do you work with other social services organizations or there? Because one of the things that I was thinking is if I was interested in doing that and there is no pause Houston kind of organization that's doing what you're doing. You know, if I reached out to Meals on Wheels or if I reached out to the city social services or a senior center, I wonder if I could make those same kinds of connections and say, hey, do you know somebody that lives near me that might need some assistance with their pet? I don't know.

Yeah, no, that's sort of exactly how we do it. So my colleague Carrie, who's our deputy director of programs and strategy, her, one of her core responsibilities is partnership development. So she goes out, she does research, she identifies organizations that service. Similar demographic will present our services how somebody qualifies it's most often a presentation to case managers, social workers and that's how many of the referrals come into us is through the connections we've made through partnership development and we've been doing that since the beginning. You mentioned Meals on Wheels. City Meals on Wheels here in New York City is like our longest standing programmatic partner, because back in the day when I had this idea and we weren't doing anything, I went to them and said I have this idea for an organization like what do you think? And they felt like it was a need and they helped connect me to many of the agencies that they work with in terms of the meal distribution and actually right now we're working with City Meals. Our client intakes have slowed a little bit. We're like we know that there's need, but referrals have been a little bit, haven't been coming in as frequently as we're used to, and so we're actually working with City Meals to place inserts into their meal deliveries. So actually I think next week there will be thousands of homebound New Yorkers who, when they receive their hot meals delivered, a part of that package will include an insert about our services and how they can get in touch with us if they need help, and so I'm really excited and curious to see how effective that sort of form of like marketing for client sourcing will be. But we're excited and hoping that we'll see a pretty big uptake in new clients as a result. But yeah, I mean you hit the nail on the head. That's sort of exactly how we find our clients, because otherwise it's how do you do it? Right, you're just walking down the street trying to find people in need. You might find a couple of people like that, but it's not really how you're going to grow and make a bigger impact.

Have you guys considered expanding beyond New York City? Like I hate to call it a franchise, because I'm sure that's not what it's called, so ASPCA obviously there's ASPCAs everywhere under the big umbrella, or are you just you're focusing on the quality that you've got going there?

So a little bit of both. I mean, we've always, and I've always, had this hope that we can expand. I actually I get contacted pretty frequently by people who either are asking if we provide services and it's often sort of the surrounding area, so West Chester County, new Jersey, long Island and right now the answer is we are not doing it because there's still such a need that we're not needing yet. But we would like to expand and I feel like we're building a model that can be exported. Every community is different, so how it will succeed you have to adapt right. New York City is its own. I mean, even within New York City, you have Staten Island. Staten Island is much different than the rest of the city in terms of right, like they're not as dependent on public transportation. Volunteer recruitment is a different thing, like every area, depending on sort of how people live and get around, will impact how to operate a program like this. And so I would love to you mentioned the beginning. I recently moved from the city to Connecticut. I've already been thinking about oh, like you know, is there something we can do out here? But it's tricky right, because there's just still so much work to do. So I think the short answer is it's in the long-term plan, but it's probably not in the three-year plan.

Yeah, yeah, rachel, I just want to thank you so much again for being here with us today and sharing the information that you shared about Paws, new York. I hope that it has inspired other people to just get more involved in their community, to care, to be more observant and to look for opportunities to help those who might need a little help, for whatever reason.

Thank you so much, amy. This has honestly been such a pleasure and we appreciate having the opportunity to speak on a platform like this and share our work and, as we talked about, our goal is to just help as many people in Pet State together as possible, and so if we can help inspire other people to create programs in their own communities or get involved with us, that would be wonderful, and we just appreciate the opportunity to spread the word.

That's great, great, and we'll put the links to your social media to the website so that people can access your information and hopefully get involved in whatever way they're able to, either physically or, like we talked about, sharing on social media, providing donations. All of that helps and all of that makes it possible. So, for all of you who are listening, especially if you are in the New York area, make sure to share this episode of Starlight Pet Talk with your friends and family, because this is just an amazing organization that I think deserves all of our attention and support. So, thank you all for listening today and, like we say every week, if you don't do anything else this week, make sure you give your pets a hug from us.

You've been listening to the Starlight Pet Talk podcast. We're glad you joined us to gain new insight on the many loving ways to adopt and care for your pets. Be sure to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode, and if you want more information, go to starlightpettalkcom, because your pet can't talk. And join us next time for Starlight Pet Talk.