Key Largo pickleball tournament to help pet owners keep animals

Pickleball paddles and a miniature aussiedoodle named Pickles helped turn Key Largo Community Park into a fundraiser Saturday as Women for Paws held its first Pickleball for Paws tournament to keep pets with the families that love them. The event started at 8 a.m., drew players of all skill levels, and paired the tournament with a raffle.

Grace C. Lopez, the founder of Women for Paws, said the organization has been helping pet owners for about 15 years and hoped the tournament would bring in between $6,000 and $7,000. The $75 entry fee was designed to make the event accessible while still raising money for direct aid, and organizers expected about 50 to 80 participants. Matthew Peil helped organize the tournament.

Women for Paws said the money goes to pet retention, not shelter operations. The group said it helps cover unexpected veterinary bills, surgeries, treatments, medicine, vaccines, neutering, food and temporary boarding when an owner is sick or injured and cannot care for an animal. Lopez said the organization works with local nonprofits such as MarrVelous Pet Rescues and the Upper Keys Humane Society to help people keep pets in their homes instead of surrendering them.

Lopez’s work traces back to volunteer experience with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, where she saw patients forced to give up their animals during treatment. A Women for Paws profile says she later served as the first Hispanic board president for the Miami/Fort Lauderdale Susan G. Komen affiliate from 2011 to 2014, adding a long record of advocacy to the new fundraiser.

The need is plain in Monroe County, where Animal Control says its mission includes promoting responsible pet ownership, reducing pet overpopulation, and preventing cruelty and abandonment. The county helps fund three animal control shelters run by independent contractors, while the Upper Keys Humane Society says it is a no-kill shelter, is not government funded, and survives on donations. The shelter says it provides food, shelter, medical care and adoptions for unwanted and abandoned animals.

The financial pressure behind surrender is also easy to see in Monroe County’s housing costs, where renters face a median monthly rent of $1,959. Against that backdrop, even one emergency can tip a household toward giving up a pet. Women for Paws and its partners are trying to stop that before it happens, one pickleball tournament at a time.