Creature Comfort: Nonprofit CO-PAW Veterinary Clinic Fills a Gap with Low-Cost Services
Breona Baines founded the clinic, located in Columbus’ Fifth by Northwest neighborhood, as a resource for underserved communities and rescue groups.
Within a nondescript storefront on King Avenue, Breona Baines and her team are saving lives. The clean, no-frills space is the headquarters of CO-PAW, a nonprofit veterinary clinic that caters to underserved communities and rescue groups (though any pet owner can use its services).
Baines founded CO-PAW—Central Ohio’s Programs for Animal Welfare—in September 2021 out of sheer frustration with the prices charged by for-profit vet clinics and emergency rooms in the area. “There’s no such thing as low-cost veterinary ER, so for people from all financial backgrounds, that’s where you have to go,” says Baines, who previously worked for traditional animal hospitals.
This is the case with Pepper, a longhaired white kitten with black spots who is at CO-PAW in mid-February. About a month earlier, Noella Velazquez’s husband saw the kitten lying in the middle of the road near a gas station. He brought her home, but she was in rough shape. Her right ear was dangling off, and her entire side was covered in burns. “The ER is like, $250 just to see her, and I could not do that,” says Velazquez, who owns three other cats and a dog. She spent the night watching and hoping Pepper would make it until she could get her into CO-PAW in Columbus’ Fifth by Northwest neighborhood.
Today, Pepper is on her way to recovery after surgery at CO-PAW. At a for-profit veterinary clinic, her initial care would have cost between $3,000 and $4,000, says Dr. Robert Outzs, who was performing a checkup of Pepper on this day. Velazquez paid just $190 at CO-PAW.
So how does the clinic—which employs four veterinarians, two registered veterinary technicians and four veterinary assistants—provide these services at such a discounted rate? Baines, possibly the only Black woman operator of a nonprofit veterinary clinic in Central Ohio, went without a salary for the first 2-plus years of operation. Initially, she worked at home for another company, balancing running CO-PAW for the two or three days it was open a week. “But the first day we did spay/neuter, it was insane. We had like 70 animals show up, and that’s when I realized I was going to have to dedicate more time to [CO-PAW],” says Baines, who runs the front desk in addition to managing clinic operations. Since that time, she’s lived off savings. More recently, when CO-PAW increased operations to Monday through Friday, she began taking a small salary “as needed.”
Beyond payments for services, CO-PAW receives funding mostly through donations and crowdfunding for specific cases via social media. Grants for veterinary and rescue services are “cut-throat,” Baines says, adding that she’d love to have assistance from a volunteer grant-writer and skilled fundraiser.
Until then, she’s prepared to shoulder all she can for the sake of providing affordable veterinary care. “They’re long days, but I think it’s rewarding. It’s definitely tiring, but it’s definitely something the community needs.”
This story is from the April 2024 issue of Columbus Monthly.