Pet Adoption Center Of Orange County

Our Mission: The Pet Adoption Center of Orange County connects adoptable pets with loving people and the resources they need to be a family for life.
Our Vision: A community that cares so deeply for the welfare of its pets that it renders shelter euthanasia not only unnecessary, but unimaginable.

The Pet Adoption Center of Orange County (PAC-OC) was created to increase the adoption rate for Orange County shelter animals, and provide long-needed access to local pet adoptions for South Orange County residents. The pandemic shift led us to address the most pressing community needs by expanding our community assistance services to include relinquishment, pet food pantry assistance and other prevention services to keep pets in their homes so that they do not become a shelter statistic.

While pets are awaiting their forever homes at the PAC-OC, they are in a home-like environment with an abundance of human interaction at our Lake Forest adoption center. The PAC-OC is designed to be a model for the future of community-based pet adoptions and education. It provides a setting where the community can donate, volunteer, learn, interact with, and adopt pets. The center includes dog bedrooms with windows where our pups roam freely as they would do at home—with their owners, with additional playroom and sofa spaces. This is less stressful on the animals, which makes them happier—as well as making it more likely that the animals will be adopted.

PAC-OC dogs receive a minimum of five walks and socialization/play time a day. Potential owners interact with the pets in a setting that makes everyone feel comfortable, and simulates their home environment. The facility is designed to be a welcoming, community-focused gathering place. The Lake Forest adoption center is primarily operated by volunteers. Those managing the center are highly-qualified, well-educated, successful business people who are also animal welfare advocates, with extensive nonprofit experience. As long-time residents, they are embedded in the local community. The PAC-OC receives $19,000 in support annually from the City of Lake Forest to prioritize assisting Lake Forest residents and their pets.

The PAC-OC has become an integral part of the local business community as a member of the Lake Forest and Rancho Santa Margarita Chambers of Commerce. We are the nonprofit sponsor of the South County Pet Expo in conjunction with Orange County Supervisor Donald Wagner and the City of Lake Forest. Until COVID-19, the center operated during hours that provided the highest level of access to the general public, allowing for after-work and weekend adoptions. Since the pandemic, access is by appointment only, with flexible hours to meet the needs of our limited staffing and potential adopters. The center is staffed with volunteers on shifts from morning until night. They manage and maintain all aspects of the facility and the animals.

The PAC-OC is the culmination of years of work by the local animal welfare community, looking for a facilities-based way to assist owner-surrendered dogs and shelter pets in finding loving homes in South Orange County. Operations were primarily funded by the Stanley W. Ekstrom Foundation until our agreement with the foundation expired on June 30, 2022. The foundation opted not to continue with support, citing the increasing cost of dog rescue. This has left us without a principal funder to pay the rent, at a time when our services are needed more than ever. While it has opened the PAC-OC up to providing a broader variety of services—as we address the expanding community needs, we desperately need donations to keep our facility open.

2023 Accomplishments: While the nationwide animal sheltering crisis exploded with fewer adoptions, higher medical costs and dog length-of stay significantly increasing, the PAC-OC looked to address the genesis of the problems through broadening our community-focused prevention efforts. We expanded services to include corporate events in collaboration with businesses of all types, such as UCI Medical Center, Live Nation, and United Pet Care. We also offered adoption/education events with the cities of Lake Forest and Rancho Santa Margarita. Our proudest accomplishment, though, was the collaboration with RSM Cares, The Bell Tower Foundation in Rancho Santa Margarita to formally offer ongoing pet food pantry services in conjunction with the RSM Cares Food Pantry. Approximately 40% of the hundreds of families that utilize the Food Pantry twice monthly also receive pet food.

2024 Goals: We continue to grow our community prevention efforts as the animal sheltering crisis deepens. The 2023-24 years have proven to be the greatest challenge for pet adoptions in decades. As such, the need for community education, prevention, and support are exploding. In addition to growing our Pet Pantry efforts, we are working on a collaborative effort to provide the South Orange County area with low-cost spay and neuter services as a means to reduce the growing pet overpopulation problem. The PAC-OC is providing more community service opportunities, and expanding our outreach efforts to the community via corporate and unique event opportunities. Finding new sources of funding—through donations, grants, and providing naming rights to our Lake Forest center are top priorities.

2022 Accomplishments: The PAC-OC successfully relaunched the South County Pet Expo with the City of Lake Forest and Supervisor Donald Wagner, with over 30 adoptions, including dogs, cats, birds, and rabbits in a single day. As a community partner, we added further events to aid the community, increasing our efforts in the areas of caring for medical pets and assisting homeless individuals with their pets. Photos with Santa fundraiser continued to be a well-attended event.

2021 Accomplishments: During the first full year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to be agile in repositioning our services. The PAC-OC continued to develop additional resources to bring in adoptable animals. Our rescue and adoption rate stabilized. The PAC-OC held it's first, highly successful, free microchip clinic, assisted several veterans and low-income Lake Forest residents with veterinary services, and held our best ever Photos with Santa fundraiser, while managing the organization through pandemic restrictions.

2020 Accomplishments: Even with additional measures required to deal with COVID-19 restrictions, the PAC-OC managed to increase the number of dogs rescued and adopted by 70%. New relationships were established which brought dogs in that had been rescued from municipal shelters from as far away as the Imperial Valley and the Central Valley.

2019 Accomplishments: Utilizing volunteers, the PAC-OC collaborated with the Lake Forest Chamber of Commerce, local businesses, community groups and vendors on community education, adoptions, and fundraising events; worked with the Stanley W. Ekstrom Foundation for principal funding of our Lake Forest pet adoption center, and the City of Lake Forest, which contracts with us to assist Lake Forest animals and their owners. The PAC-OC operated as the nonprofit sponsor of the largest single day event in the history of Lake Forest, in conjunction with the City of Lake Forest and Supervisor Lisa Bartlett—The South County Pet Expo—in it's fourth year.

Our most pressing needs are:

1. One-time or sustained funding to pay our monthly rent and utilities of approximately $8,000 per month.
2. Funding to cover medical costs for our rescued animals of approximately $6,000 per month and facility maintenance and related operations of approximately $4,000 per month.
3. Community/corporate partners interested in establishing a mutually beneficial relationship. We've established a corporate sponsorship program-email us for details. Without community support, we wouldn't have made it this far!
4. A full-time or part-time fundraiser to handle donors, grant-writing, events, and other creative fundraising opportunities.
5. Funding to hire additional staffing for the center. Our current operations include one employee and ~90 volunteers.

Although our facility is located in South Orange County, our services are provided to aid families and animals plus provide education services throughout Orange County. We rescue dogs from owners and shelters throughout California, and adopt our pups to homes in Southern California, where we can be available to assist again, if the need ever arises.

Thanks to past support from OCCF donors, our relationships with the City of Lake Forest, Lake Forest Chamber of Commerce, City of Rancho Santa Margarita, Rancho Santa Margarita Chamber of Commerce and local businesses, and the prior funding from the Stanley W. Ekstrom Foundation, we were able to build and grow an adoption center that is a unique model in pet rescue.

The PAC-OC houses our dogs in a home-like environment at our center to make them adoptable medically and behaviorally, thanks to the loving care of our volunteers and our village of support. We have become an amazing local resource with high ratings from those who use our services.

With the challenges of our post-pandemic environment, the community needs our assistance more than ever. Yet, donations and fundraising efforts have been greatly reduced nationwide, as our communities suffer from economic impacts.

Most notably, the SWEF choose not to renew their funding as of June 30, 2022, citing the high cost of dog rescue and adoption. Yet we had a 70% increase in the number of animals we rescued and adopted in 2020, over 2019, and each year from opening until that time had annual increases in rescues and adoptions, with steady adoptions for most of 2021. However, as of 2022, the public tired of pandemic lockdowns, and began to leave the house again. Pet adoption rates plummeted nationally.

Throughout 2023 and into 2024, the adoption rates have continued to slow, with a far greater number of people looking to give up their pets than there are potential adopters. That coupled with inflation and housing insecurity, has impacted the ability of most organizations to keep up with the level of adoptions from previous years. This had created an animal welfare crisis.

We reassessed community needs and created new programming to make a greater impact. In order to continue to provide these high-demand services, funding is CRITICAL. We receive more in-kind contributions than we can handle, while the ability to provide financial support to organizations such as ours has been severely diminished.

The OC Register recognized my efforts in the establishment and opening of the PAC-OC Lake Forest pet adoption center, listing me as one of the 100 most influential people in Orange County in 2017. In 2018, the University of Phoenix, Southern California—where I received my MBA—awarded me with a Distinguished Alumni Award for using my education to excel professionally, provide inspirational leadership to others and service to our community. In 2022, The Los Angeles Times - Orange County, acknowledged my efforts as an Orange County Visionary. In 2024, The Los Angeles Times - Orange County recognized my efforts as an nominee for an Inspirational Women award. Recently, I was profiled in the online publication, Bold Journey.

This is the type of leadership I utilize in operating this organization. This is a true passion project, where I involve volunteers with the same passion for compassionate care for animals and assistance for families in need, creating an amazing team effort to impact the community. It definitely shows in the pets we place, and the events we hold.

At this time, financial donations are desperately needed for operations; to go directly to medical care for the pets we rescue; and to assist needy local residents with low-cost veterinary services that we provide in order to help owners be able to keep their pets during this difficult time. We greatly appreciate any and all support for our cause: Pets. Family. For Life.

In order to maximize the number of pets rescued with limited funding, we have focused on utilizing volunteers to manage and operate our facility, and care for the dogs onsite. We've become ingrained in the community, and are now appearing in over 70,000 Google searches monthly, as the only organization of our type in the area. We are often confused for an animal shelter because we are so unique. We provide care and customer service that others can't. We are a community resource providing pet food, information and referrals to others when we are unable to assist via intake. We would love to expand our reach. We are creating new volunteer roles to address these challenges. Post-pandemic we have streamlined our adoption process. We interact with the public via phone and computer for adoption screening, unless we are at events. Once we have screened potential adopters as likely matches for our pups, we arrange for in-person meetings. Our biggest challenge is resources, mainly money that will allow us to better serve the community and assist more pets. Your help is essential to our efforts!