Helping Paws Animal Shelter’s mission is to provide shelter, food, medical care, and comfort to abandoned, neglected, and abused animals until they are placed into loving, responsible homes.

Second Chances Start Here!

Helping Paws is a no-kill animal shelter and private, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Our small, committed staff of 11 employees and over 300 dedicated volunteers handle and care for more than 800 animals annually and serve more than 300,000 residents in McHenry County and surrounding communities.

Each animal that comes into our shelter is treated with respect, kindness and compassion. We believe that for each of our animals…”Second Chances Start Here.”

The best things in life are rescued.

Join us October 8, 2022 for the Panting for Paws Festival!

News

We’ve been helping animals find loving homes for over 50 years!

Watch our video to learn more about Helping Paws.

About Helping Paws

Ways to Donate

Do Your Holiday Shopping With

You shop. Amazon gives. When you shop AmazonSmile, Amazon will donate to your favorite charitable organization.

  • Amazon donates 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to Helping Paws Animal Shelter
  • AmazonSmile is the same Amazon you know. Same products, same prices, same service.
  • Support your charitable organization by starting your shopping at smile.amazon.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

AmazonSmile is a website operated by Amazon that lets customers like you enjoy the same wide selection of products, low prices, and convenient shopping features as on Amazon.com. The difference is that when you shop on AmazonSmile, the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases to the charitable organizations of your choice.

Tens of millions of products on AmazonSmile are eligible for donations. You will see eligible products marked “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” on their product detail pages. Recurring Subscribe-and-Save purchases and subscription renewals are not currently eligible. For more information, see Qualifying Purchases in the AmazonSmile Participation Agreement.

No. Amazon funds the operations of the AmazonSmile Foundation.
  • Always shop at smile.amazon.com. If you’re shopping on the regular amazon.com site, the purchases will not count.
  • Select “Fox Valley Helping Paws Animal Welfare Association” as the organization you’d like to support.
  • Verify that you see our name in the header as your selected organization.

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Purchase the Items We Need

and send them directly to us!

Donate to us by shopping our wish list:

  • Go to our Amazon Wishlist
  • Select the items you’d like to donate
  • Send the order directly to us at Helping Paws Animal Shelter, 2500 Harding Lane, Woodstock, IL 60098

Gift a Gift of Stock

gift of stock icon

Donating stock can be an effective and efficient method of supporting Helping Paws Animal Shelter. Stock donations may enable you to increase your gift to Helping Paws while realizing additional tax benefits to you. Check with your broker or tax advisor to determine if a stock donation makes sense for you.

Instruct your bank or broker how many shares of which companies you wish to gift and instruct them to deliver as follows:

Benjamin F. Edwards & Co.
11621 Catalpa Lane, Woodstock, IL 60098
Account Name: Fox Valley Helping Paws Animal Shelter Association
EIN: 23-7177946

For more information, please contact Helping Paws at info@helpingpaws.net

Upcoming Events

Panting 4 Paws

October 5 @ 7:00 am - 10:30 am

Saving one animal won’t change the world, but it will change the world for that one animal.