PAWS up! Animal shelter launches new logo, looks to promising future

By Cheryl Allen
Posted 12/6/22

On Dec. 1, PAWS & More Animal Shelter unveiled its new logo before a celebrating crowd at Kalona Brewing Company in Kalona.  The brewpub donated 10% of that night’s sales to the …

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PAWS up! Animal shelter launches new logo, looks to promising future

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On Dec. 1, PAWS & More Animal Shelter unveiled its new logo before a celebrating crowd at Kalona Brewing Company in Kalona.  The brewpub donated 10% of that night’s sales to the shelter.

PAWS’s new branding is the first step in a capital campaign to raise $2.9 million to buy land and build a new 8000 square-foot animal shelter in Washington County.  Their current building at 1004 W. Madison St., Washington, has reached the end of its useful life.

Treasurer Sara O’Donnell explained the symbolism of the new logo at the unveiling. 

“We have a new vision for PAWS & More,” she said.  “We have a color palette that is based on the colors of Iowa, so you’ll see some golds and greens and some blue in there.  Our friend Andrea from Riverside helped us design the color palette, and we’re super grateful to her.  And then we asked Mo, my daughter, if she would help us design a new logo.”

As a slideshow featuring animals the shelter has helped played on the large screen to their right, PAWS board members revealed a framed poster-size graphic of the new logo, which consists of cat and dog silhouettes set inside of the shape of Iowa, with a small heart where Washington County is located.

O’Donnell explained that they used the shape of Iowa “because we really feel the reach of PAWS is the whole state.  You can see where our heart is, and that is Washington County, so a little heart is there.”

Board President Ann Valentine told The News how Mo O’Donnell’s logo design was selected.

“We were just spinning our wheels,” Valentine said.  “We couldn’t come up with a design the board just loved.  And this young woman just tried her hand at it, and we loved it right away.”

“We’re proud of having taken advantage of some really hopeful young talent in the community,” she added.

The seed for a new beginning kicked off by the logo launch party Thursday was planted in February, when the board of directors learned that foundation damage at their current location would cost more to repair than the building was worth. 

“It was bad news and heartbreaking, because people have loved that location,” Valentine said.  “But in another way, it’s like a birthday party, a new opportunity, and it allows us to dream about what we really want the facility to be like, one that’s built for us and what we need.”

Valentine explained that demand for PAWS & More’s animal welfare services is growing, especially from areas outside of Washington County.  As a result, the shelter has found the number of animals it cares for grow rapidly – Valentine said they were seeing about 400 animals a year, but last year helped around 1000.    

“We are literally animal field services for all of Washington County,” she explained.  “We serve the County of Washington, we serve the City of Washington, we serve all of the incorporated towns in Washington County.  And we’re getting calls from Henry, Louisa, and Keokuk counties, because there are communities there that need help.”

“The 4000 square-foot facility we have now just doesn’t quite allow us to do everything we need to do,” Valentine continues.  “And it was originally built to be a pottery studio, of all things.  So, we’ve really had to cobble together the air exchange that we’re required to have by law, and cobble together the kennels and drainage and everything we need.  So, it is exciting to think about a new facility that we can really build to appropriate specifications right from the beginning.”

Valentine gave an example of a type of challenge the shelter is sometimes faced with.

“A few weeks ago, we had a call from Henry County, and there was an older gentleman who, in an unserved area, was doing his very best to try to protect and save cats,” she said. “He had something like 50 cats.  He had built-in wooden boxes inside his house to help protect these cats.  But then he ended up in the hospital and needed someone to help out.  What are we going to do with 50 cats when we’re already fairly full?”

Executive Director Amber Talbot came to the rescue, networking with other shelters to place all of the cats. 

“It was a hard situation, but hoarding is very common,” Talbot said.  “It’s in everybody’s backyard.  And it’s a difficult thing to handle because no facility is usually equipped to take a whole bunch [of animals] at one time.”

PAWS & More is currently in the silent phase of their capital campaign; they’re making sure they have good policies, re-writing their manuals, and launching a new look for their website and logo.  By the end of the year, they hope to have chosen the land on which to build their new facility.  By mid-2024, they hope to be ready for the public phase of their fund-raising effort.

Valentine told the crowd at the brewpub that their current facility “was never intended to be an animal shelter, but my goodness, our staff and our volunteers have cobbled things together over the years to make it work.  And now it’s time for us to step up as an organization and have a whole new outlook on the future.”