09/02/2026
🐾 15 YEARS OF MISSOURI LOST & FOUND PAWS 🐾
August 31, 2011 – August 31, 2026
*sit back cuz this is gonna be long*
Fifteen years ago, I had a vision.
I wondered if we could build a community of strangers, people who might never meet one another, who came from different cities, different backgrounds and different walks of life, but who would be united by one simple thing: A love for animals and a desire to help them find their way home.
I could only have dreamed of what that community would become.
Yesterday, as Missouri Lost & Found Paws celebrates 15 years of service, our social media community has helped reunite well over 100,000 lost and found pets. More than 100,000 people now follow our social media platforms and regional Facebook communities.
But numbers could never tell the whole story.
Behind every reunion is a family who was searching.
A person who stopped for an animal wandering along a road.
Someone who shared a post.
Someone who drove across town with a microchip scanner.
Someone who spent hours watching a trap.
Someone who crawled through brush, walked fields, checked cameras, hung flyers, answered messages or simply refused to give up.
And sometimes, there is someone willing to do the heartbreaking work of scanning a deceased pet because somewhere there may be a family desperately searching, and they deserve to know what happened.
There are things we have seen over these 15 years that I wish none of us had ever had to see.
But there has also been extraordinary kindness.
❤️ To our volunteers, past and present:
There simply would not be a Missouri Lost & Found Paws without you.
Volunteers have come and gone throughout these 15 years, and every person who has given their time, knowledge, compassion and energy has helped build what stands today.
Our current team is extraordinary.
Most of us work full-time jobs. We have families, responsibilities and lives outside of rescue. Yet day after day, these volunteers show up because they believe this work matters.
I could not ask to be part of a more dedicated team, and I could not be more proud of what we have built together.
But our team extends far beyond the people whose names appear on our volunteer list.
Across Missouri, there is an incredible network of independent animal advocates who give their own time and often their own money to help animals they have never met. They search for frightened dogs. They humanely trap animals who have been surviving on their own for weeks or months. Some have invested their own money into building incredibly sophisticated trapping equipment for the most difficult cases. They buy food and supplies. They help injured and sick animals wandering our communities. They scan found pets when animal control is unavailable. And they do it quietly, often without recognition, simply because an animal needs help.
They are part of this story, too.
Over the years, we have also been incredibly fortunate to build relationships with animal control divisions, municipal shelters, private shelters, rescue organizations, veterinary professionals, police departments, first responders and government agencies throughout our communities.
Those relationships matter enormously.
Because lost-and-found pet work cannot exist in a silo.
It takes all of us.
In 2017, we began another project very close to our hearts: raising donations to purchase and place microchip scanners in communities where they were needed.
Standing here in 2026, it is incredible to think about the impact those little devices have made.
And it remains one of my biggest dreams that someday, every animal control division and law enforcement agency across Missouri and throughout our surrounding metro, communities will have access to a microchip scanner.
It is such a simple tool. Yet for one frightened animal and one devastated family, it can mean everything.
We've also spent years developing educational and preventative materials for shelters, veterinary clinics and our communities. These resources are designed not only to reunite lost pets, but to help prevent pets from becoming lost in the first place.
I hope we can grow that program again.
We operate entirely through volunteers, and programs like educational printing and microchip scanner donations are only possible when our community supports them.
We stretch every dollar. Whenever possible, materials are created and printed right at home. Because every dollar we save is another dollar that can help an animal.
There is another reason this work matters so deeply.
Every lost pet we successfully return to their rightful family is one less animal entering an already overwhelmed shelter system. That means one more kennel may remain available. One more rescue may have a little more breathing room. One more shelter employee may have a little more time for an abandoned, surrendered or truly homeless animal who has nowhere else to go.
Reuniting families is not separate from animal rescue. It is part of it.
And somewhere along these 15 years, something else happened.
Strangers became teammates. Teammates became friends. Organizations became partners. And what began as an idea became a community.
As I look toward the next 15 years, I still have big dreams for Missouri Lost & Found Paws.
I hope we welcome more volunteers.
I hope we expand our educational programs.
I hope we place many more microchip scanners.
I hope we find new ways to connect shelters, rescues, animal control, law enforcement, veterinary professionals and independent advocates so that we can work together instead of alongside one another.
And most of all, I hope we never lose the thing that started all of this:
The belief that one person choosing to help can change the outcome for an animal and sometimes for an entire family.
Leading Missouri Lost & Found Paws for these past 15 years has been one of the greatest honors of my life.
To every volunteer who has served with us...
To every animal advocate who has answered a call for help...
To every shelter, rescue, veterinary clinic, animal control officer, police officer, first responder and community partner who has worked beside us...
To every person who has donated, shared a post, hung a flyer, searched a neighborhood, scanned a pet, opened their garage for a frightened dog, checked their camera footage, offered advice or simply told a devastated owner, "I'll help you look"...
And to every one of you who has believed in this mission:
Thank you.
Thank you for trusting us.
Thank you for supporting us.
Thank you for showing us, again and again, just how much good can happen when a community decides that someone's lost pet matters.
Here's to the thousands of animals who found their way home.
Here's to the friendships created along the way.
Here's to every person who helped make those reunions possible.
And here's to the next 15 years. 🐾❤️
Happy 15th Anniversary, Missouri Lost & Found Paws.
Founded August 31, 2011.
Built by volunteers. Powered by community. United for the animals.
