Our Mission

Hi, This is Chris - President of the Gwen Fund.

The Gwen Fund was inspired by a very special chocolate lab, Gwen. She was my sidekick and best friend for over 15 years. In September of 2020 she was diagnosed with Hemangiosarcoma.  Slight changes in Gwen’s behavior led us to seek an opinion from our veterinarian and after several visits we were not able to make any determinations. Our final option was to complete more testing which would cost over $700 to complete – but was the only way we would find an answer. We did what we needed to do to take care of her, and this was when we got the grim news. The tumors in Gwen’s abdomen had already ruptured and Gwen had only a few days left. Our veterinarians went above and beyond to make her comfortable and provided us with the opportunity to spend quality time with Gwen and give her a dignified farewell. She passed away on her bed with my husband and I on either side of her the morning of September 26th, 2020, at 11:25am.

While we processed the emotions of such a huge loss in our family, I knew that I wanted to do something more. I quickly came to realize just how lucky we were to have been able to access this higher-level testing. Access to funds is what allowed us to find the problem, and act. Without this, Gwen would have died scared, alone and in a lot of pain. I am forever grateful for being able to provide Gwen the end-of-life care that we did, and it is the mission of The Gwen Fund to ensure that no pet and no family would have to endure this kind of loss simply due to lack of funding.

The Gwen Fund works with local veterinarians to determine need and when appropriate, The Gwen Fund may step in to assist with all or some of the financial resources needed to provide these types of higher-level diagnostics, imaging and more.