SCRAPS’s cat foster mother Paige Hamilton gets Governor’s Volunteer Service Award

Paige Hamilton was recently recognized with the 2020 Governor’s Volunteer Service Award after dedicating more than 900 hours last year to the Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service.

SCRAPS volunteer and outreach coordinator Joanne Meleney said Hamilton has been a dedicated volunteer since 2014. “She’s got a total of just over 3,000 hours since 2014,” she said. “She’s a rock star.”

Meleney said Hamilton also fosters cats and kittens in her home, but those hours were not counted.

“She’s mainly a cat person, which is good for us because out of the 10,000 animals we impound every year, about two-thirds are cats,” she said. “That’s a lot of cats.”

She said Hamilton single-handedly runs their off-site adoption kennels at the Spokane Valley Petco and PetSmart stores, doing everything from transporting cats to training volunteers to making sure the animals are cared for. It’s a job that no one on staff has time for, she said.

“We would have had to close off-site if it wasn’t for her,” she said. “It’s just totally her effort.”

The off-site adoption locations are key and hundreds of animals found homes that way last year. It’s a less stressful environment for both animals and people, Meleney said. “The reason why we do this is a lot of people won’t go into the shelter,” she said. “It’s not as stressful at a pet store.”

Hamilton said she got involved in SCRAPS after the organization moved to its current location on East Trent Avenue. She stopped by for the open house when they opened and adopted her dog, Zeke, a border collie and Australian shepherd mix, from SCRAPS.

“I have always loved little critters,” she said. “That’s how I got started.”

She started out volunteering a little bit, then wanted to do more. She was asked to help the woman who ran the off-site adoption centers at the time. When that volunteer died, Hamilton stepped up.

“I thought, this is a good program, I have to keep it alive,” she said. “It’s just one of those things that came about.”

Along the way Hamilton has acquired three cats that she signed up to foster but who never found homes, so she kept them. “They are all kind of misfits for one reason or another,” she said.

Hamilton said she doesn’t really keep track of the number of cats she has fostered over the years. “They come and go so much,” she said. “I get batches of kittens.”

Hamilton, 64, works part-time as a fill-in nurse at MultiCare Valley Hospital. That leaves her plenty of time to help cats. She said she usually prefers to stay in the background, but is grateful for the recognition for her work. She found out about the award two months ago. “I thought that was amazing,” she said.

Still, she’s not too upset that the traditional governor’s luncheon that goes along with the award was canceled due to the coronavirus. It was scheduled for this week.

“Those things are kind of embarrassing,” she said. “I’m a person that likes to be with cats rather than in the limelight.”

So Hamilton will stay home instead of traveling to Olympia and take care of the felines she loves.

“I just tried to help the cats,” she said. “People take the dogs. It’s the cats there are so many of.”