Paws for a Cause Vet Care leaves Lisle location for new expanded facility in Naperville: ‘Like a dream come true'
Though they officially opened in their new 16,000-square-foot facility at 1620 Bond St. in early April, the clinic will celebrate with a grand opening event from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 15, at which the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce will hold the ribbon-cutting.
'(It's) kind of like a dream come true,' Brittany Eslary, Paws for a Cause Vet Care's chief development officer, said Thursday.
The new facility is about quadruple the size of where they had been operating previously, Eslary said. The clinic offers preventative care, diagnostic services, surgical services, dental care and an on-site pharmacy.
Services are devised to be comprehensive and affordable, according to Eslary. The latter goes back to the nonprofit's founding mission to make pet care more accessible as a means of preventing pet homelessness and shelter overpopulation.
'That's really been a big piece of the puzzle and focus — making sure that affordability and price wasn't the reason that people weren't able to get care for their pet,' Eslary said.
The origins of Paws for a Clause date back more than 15 years. The venture started in 2009 when founder and CEO Kathi Daniels, alongside a small group of volunteers, started organizing low-cost and free spay/neuter clinics in the Kankakee County area, she said.
From there, 'by word of mouth it just grew,' Eslary said. In 2010, the nonprofit opened its first stationary clinic in Momence, about an hour and a half southeast of Naperville.
In 2013, the nonprofit started renting a space in Lisle, which is where the venture really started to become more of a full-time operation, she said. Meanwhile, the clinic still traveled to off-site locations to offer vaccinations and microchipping to other communities. That was the clinic's model for years until the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to off-site work, Eslary said.
But in the pandemic's wake, the nonprofit honed in on a years-long goal of expanding and bringing services under one comprehensive roof.
'Our new space allows us to meet the growing needs of our community while staying true to our mission of keeping pets healthy and in loving homes,' Daniels said in a news release. 'Our new location not only expands our capacity but also enables us to introduce a wider array of services that address the comprehensive health needs of pets.'
Last year, the clinic had more than 27,000 pet visits, including 15,562 general wellness visits, 11,116 spay and neuter surgeries, and 334 dental procedures, according to the nonprofit's website.
With the opening of its new facility, Paws for a Clause now has a staff of 47, Eslary said.
She started working with the nonprofit in 2014 after graduating from college, she said. For six years, she was the clinic's assistant development director. In 2019, Eslary left to take a job out of state but returned last October as chief development officer.
'Seeing the slow growth over time and having this opportunity to have what's becoming a state-of-the-art facility brings (this) to a new level of affirmation,' she said.
'It definitely keeps you motivated to want to do more.'
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