Sixty years of second chances
Since 1964, every lost, scared, and left-behind animal in Spartanburg County has had somewhere to turn. This is their shelter — and the story of the people who never stop fighting for them.
It started with one woman who refused to look away
In 1964, Mary Frances Grimes and a group of concerned neighbors founded the Spartanburg Animal Welfare League — a humane, organized answer to the county's homeless-animal crisis. They had no blueprint. Just a conviction that no animal should suffer for lack of someone to care.
Six decades later, that conviction has grown into a full shelter and clinic at 150 Dexter Road — and into something Mrs. Grimes might never have dared to imagine: year after year, more animals leaving us alive, healthy, and loved. Our rising live-release rate isn't a statistic to us. It's a promise this community keeps to its animals — one adoption, one recovery, one reunion at a time.
Here for the animals — and the people who love them
Our work has two sides. When an animal arrives lost, abandoned, or hurting, we're ready — with shelter, medical care, and the patience it takes to help them heal and find their way home.
But we also work upstream, to keep pets out of the shelter in the first place: affordable veterinary care so families can keep the animals they love, humane education for the next generation, foster homes, community-cat support, and rescue. Because the best outcome of all is the one where a pet never has to leave home.
Every animal, from every angle
Adoptions
Thoughtful matches that set families and pets up for a lifetime together.
Affordable vet care
Low-cost spay/neuter, vaccines, and treatment so cost never comes between a pet and its family.
Humane education
Classroom programs and summer camp raising the next generation of compassionate pet owners.
Foster & rescue
Temporary homes and rescue partners that give vulnerable animals the time they need to thrive.
Community cats
Trap-neuter-return and support for the county's feral and free-roaming cats.
Lost & found
Reuniting lost pets with their families — and helping found pets get home fast.
To us, every number in a report is a name, a face, a heartbeat. We celebrate every happy ending — and let each one push us to fight harder for the next.