PAWS (Protection of Animals in Wakefield Society, Inc.) Scholarship Fund

Founded in 1982 by Esther Nowell, PAWS is a non-profit, all-volunteer organization whose purpose is to promote and protect the rights and well-being of domestic animals and wildlife, and foster greater understanding of animal welfare and animal rights through education.

Esther Pratt Nowell, a well-known figure in Wakefield, was born in Melrose 1917. She earned her BA degree at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and has been a lobbyist for animal rights for forty years. Always a life-long animal lover, she recalls years ago, seeing a photo in the Boston Sunday Globe of a trapper nailing animal pelts to a barn door. It was that photo and article about animal rights that pushed her from a passive animal rights activist to an active animal rights activist and lobbyist.

PAWS mission is to promote and protect the rights and well being of domestic animals and wildlife, and foster greater understanding of animal welfare and animal rights through education. PAWS responds to animal-related needs in the greater Boston area, especially in Wakefield, Stoneham, Reading and the surrounding communities. PAWS provides a number of benefits to the community including telephone support for advice and information regarding animal care and animal-related issues, as well as lost pets, pet adoptions, injured wildlife. Volunteers lovingly foster homeless pets in preparation for adoption. PAWS also makes available low-cost spay/neuter certificates for owners who need financial assistance. PAWS volunteers provide feral colony management by humanely trapping, providing medical care, vaccinations, spay/neuter, and returns healthy cats to their colonies or places them for adoption. Perhaps one of PAWS biggest gifts to the town of Wakefield is its community outreach and education. PAWS provides 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students and teachers with annual subscriptions to The Kind News, a newspaper teaching humane values. It also sponsors Wonders of Wildlife, a four-part presentation about wildlife for all 5th grade students. This fund has a preference for a Wakefield student who will study veterinary medicine.