Pets Are Wonderful Support

Pets Are Wonderful Support is a volunteer-based organization that provides for the comprehensive needs of companion animals for low-income persons with HIV/AIDS and other disabling illnesses, as well as senior citizens. By providing these essential support services, educating the larger community on the benefits of the human-animal bond, and advocating for the rights of disabled individuals to keep service animals, PAWS improves the health and well-being of disabled individuals and the animals in their lives.

Our Vision
PAWS envisions a society that honors the vital role that companion animals have in the lives and well being of humans, where a lack of financial resources or physical abilities never threaten to separate humans from their animal companions, and where the physical, emotional and social benefits of the human-animal bond are incorporated into the health care and social service delivery systems.
Volunteers
PAWS is a volunteer-based organization. Volunteers are the heart, brain, and muscle of PAWS. The time and effort volunteers invest helps hundreds of clients stay with their beloved animal companions. And it's a great way to connect with fellow pooch and feline fans...
Education
Keeping Pets & People Together
Anyone who has ever lived with a companion animal knows that the unconditional love and acceptance we receive from them is unlike what we generally experience with our human relationships. As such, PAWS endeavors to be a resource for both patients and caregivers.
Our History
In October 1986, a group of San Francisco Foodbank volunteers saw the need to help support the pets of people living with AIDS. Many of these volunteers were people living with AIDS themselves and realized that some of the food bank clients were neglecting their own nutrition by feeding their rations to their animal companions. They remedied this situation by getting the foodbank to carry pet food and pet-related products, and then helped develop Pets Are Wonderful Support for people with AIDS/ARC, nicknamed “PAWS,” as an official project of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in the spring of 1987.
Now we are prepared to do even more. PAWS has assessed the feasibility of expanding our services beyond our current scope of clients who are living with AIDS to a broader community of people living with life threatening illnesses. It has always been clear that the importance of animal companionship for someone who is ill is not limited to people with AIDS. The agency began a pilot project to look at the impact that broadening the community we serve would have on our clients and our agency’s resources. In January 2001, the Board of Directors and staff began an intensive strategic planning process to pave the way for the agency’s future with the feasibility of broadening the community that we serve as a fundamental issue to be addressed.
As PAWS begins the second half of its second decade, we are excited that we are embarking on new ways to serve our community. Our mission is simple yet powerful: improving the quality of life for persons with AIDS and other life threatening illnesses by offering the emotional and practical support to keep the love and companionship of their pets, and by providing information on the benefits and risks of animal companionship.