Kitty Corner

Upon entering Paws and Claws Cat Rescue, the shelter’s slogan — “Where cats become family” — welcomes patrons into the store. Toys, blankets and wooden perches line every wall and window. Staff and volunteers float between four rooms equipped with food, water and litter boxes. Some felines rest inside white cardboard boxes decorated with hearts, clouds and cats hand-drawn by children of Evanston.

“I wanted to create a space that I was truly excited to be part of, and I wanted to not only save the lives of cats, but in a way, impact people as well,” Paws and Claws founder and Evanston resident Ashlynn Boyce says.

Boyce founded Paws and Claws in May 2020, noticing a “void for companionship” across the community. The shelter aims to support overlooked cats suffering from abuse, neglect and overpopulation in municipal shelters, which are required to take in all animals regardless of resources or space. The organization started small and without a physical location. Since then, Paws and Claws has saved the lives of over 2,500 cats. 

“We didn’t have a facility, so we relied on foster families, and a lot of those folks that started with us five years ago have continued to foster ever since,” Boyce says.

The program eliminates the financial restraints of fostering by providing the cats’ food and medical care. Today, the shelter is supported by over 350 community volunteers, who helped the rescue center reach over 10,000 volunteer hours in 2024. Volunteers are tasked with cleaning the cats’ spaces and playing with them.

Paws and Claws emphasizes the uniqueness of each cat, giving every feline a unique name — “Gold Dust Woman” and “Doc Marten,” to name a couple.

The shelter offers numerous opportunities for community involvement, like children’s birthday parties and kitten yoga. It also offers 90-minute-long rentals for other events hosted at the shelter.

For the past two years, Evanston resident Diana Morrow has almost always had a foster cat in her care, totaling 44 rescues. She loves to learn their quirks, favorite foods and toys, but her favorite activity is napping with the fosters.

“I get to take a nap, and I’m doing some good because I’m socializing that cat and helping them learn to snuggle, and that makes them a better companion for their future adopter,” Morrow says.

When Paws and Claws settled into its location on Chicago Avenue in 2023, Morrow was excited a cat rescue shelter had opened within walking distance from her house. She soon began fostering while working from home with her own three cats. Now, after leaving her job, she has picked up a regular volunteer shift at Paws and Claws, where she often visits her former foster cats.

Evanston resident Rosa Durand started volunteering in November 2024 and became interested in fostering, particularly after seeing the cats who could not find foster homes. After arriving at the shelter, cats must be isolated, as certain diseases can take weeks to detect. Additionally, the cats must be neutered and vaccinated, a process that starts at six weeks of age at the earliest. New rescue cats without a foster home often live in treatment room cages during this time. 

Durand noticed cats would get overwhelmed in these cages, which encouraged her to take in fosters of her own. Her first fosters were a pair of bonded cats, while another was a skittish cat who would hide in small spaces. 

“I’ve never been a cat person,” Durand says. “I grew up with dogs, and I’ve had dogs my entire life, so seeing the behavior of cats was something very interesting.”

Paws and Claws’s impact reaches far corners of the country. One cat, 7-year-old Nessa, comes from Louisiana, where it is particularly difficult for sickly cats like her to find homes. The shelter helps support cats affected by hurricanes in southern states like Florida, in addition to having strong partnerships with Midwestern states including Indiana and Michigan. To facilitate these cross-country rescues, the shelter collaborates with several volunteers to deliver the animals from the sending shelters.

As a nonprofit, the organization credits local residents and volunteers for its success over the past five years.

“People come because they’re excited about the cats,” Boyce says. “But ultimately they stay here and continue to come back because they’re excited about the community that’s been built within these four walls.”

Designed and Photos by Isabella Milliman.