Palm Valley Animal Society has been a trusted and dependable name for furry friends in the Upper Valley for decades. For most of those years, the Trenton Center was where animals were housed before turning into lovable, adopted pets.
In the coming years, the nonprofit organization will say goodbye to the iconic location at Trenton Center and utilize the Laurie P. Andrews Center to its fullest potential.
If you love animals, don’t worry — the number of animals cared for will not grow or shrink as efforts are consolidated toward the more modern location.
“[As an organization], we feel our Trenton location has exhausted its usefulness in terms of the age of location,” said Suzette Cruz, Executive Director of PVAS. “The format of the land doesn’t allow us to expand as much as we’d like. The facility is not ideal —a majority of the animals are housed outside. Not only are the animals being exposed to all the elements, but so are our staff.”
Renovations and upgrades to the Trenton Center were not an option, considering the facility’s age and projected expense.
Enter the Laurie P. Andrews Center in Edinburg (formerly known as PAWS), which opened 10 years ago in 2015. The animal center located at 2451 N Expressway 281, Edinburg, TX 78541, has all the right ingredients to serve as the organization’s sole property without sacrificing space or comfort.
“We decided that the facility is still newer, we’re able to remodel,” Cruz said. “There’s a lot of land here, 6 acres in total. We can add more buildings — we can build more efficient kennels. Our goal is to have indoor/outdoor kennels so they can go from enjoying the outdoors to getting out of the elements.”
Upgrading the kennels and animal housing is a big priority because, like the Trenton building, the kennels are over 30 years old.
Looking Forward to the Future
While the future looks bright, there is still some time before this change happens. The group wants to ensure that work on the new location is underway to minimize interruptions to how many animals they can help.
“We’re very excited,” Cruz said. “We’re looking forward to hosting our operations at one centralized location. It’s more seamless when we’re under one roof. We’re excited about expanding on the property — the area is growing. Right now, it’s still very early in the planning stages.”
The organization will need to enter a capital campaign to raise funds for the facility once the plans are in place. Currently, the City of McAllen has helped secure a consulting team for the design. The organization hopes that the City of Edinburg and the county of Hidalgo will follow suit with support.
Palm Valley is the central location where animals end up when picked up off the street as strays.
Animal Lovers Make All the Difference
“We do have the best supporters,” Cruz said. “Our community has always stepped up because of the amount of animals that we care for at any given time. We can have as many as 1,000 animals under our care between both locations. That takes a lot of resources and staff. We are investing in the animals by investing in staff, food, and medications. We have around 90 employees at any given time.” That staff includes animal care technicians, medical, adoptions, foster, development, administration, admissions, rescue, customer service, and volunteers.”
“We have an amazing group of people that work for Palm Valley, and their mission is to have live outcomes for every animal that comes into our shelter,” Cruz said. “The community that we have around us has that same vision. Any time we have a major need, like last year when we were running out of dry dog food, they stepped up. We had people bringing in thousands of pounds of food.”
Palm Valley Animal Society is such a force in the McAllen-Edinburg area because it brings together a community of people who love animals and animals that seek the love of humans.
“If you want to help, you can visit our website,” Cruz said. “You can donate, volunteer, or foster all that information at PVASTX.org. We are so grateful for the community. We have so much support, and we hope in the next few years we find even more support.”
