RSPCA NSW 2025 Volunteer of the Year Ann Dewson and event coordinator Alexie Bull. Photo: Keeli Dyson.
The Illawarra’s final Million Paws Walk, which has helped fund the RSPCA’s crucial animal welfare and care services in the region for more than three decades, has been postponed due to wet weather, but the organisation’s important work will continue.
RSPCA Illawarra Branch President Ann Dewson has volunteered for 48 years to help give animals within the region a second chance and watched the RSPCA change and grow to keep up with the community’s demand.
“It was an entirely different scenario when I first started,” she said.
“It’s just evolved, and it’s evolved to where it has to be in this day and age.”
Her decades of dedication were driven by a passion for animals and their welfare and her commitment earned her the 2025 RSPCA NSW Volunteer of the Year award.
Volunteering by Ann and others like her across the state significantly reduces workforce and administration costs and allows RSPCA funds to be directly injected into the programs, services and facilities in regions like the Illawarra.
“The amount of hours given in volunteering for RSPCA NSW, if they had to pay people to do it it would be $9 million,” Ann said.
Fundraising events and donations have helped support programs such as Safe Beds for Pets which helps care for the animals of people escaping domestic violence, and with the purchasing of new equipment and upgrading facilities.
But even the day-to-day costs of running a shelter stack up.
“People would have no idea the amount of money it would cost.
“We get a lot of animals in here that have been inspector cases, so they’ve been taken from the owners; quite often they have problems both psychologically and medically,” Ann said. “They worked out the cost per animal from the time it comes in to the time it’s adopted works out an average of $8000.
“And you can imagine, the vet fees, the desexing.”
RSPCA also supports pet owners who are experiencing hardship, covering costs for things such as desexing, to prevent animals ending up in distressing scenarios.
“It’s something that they couldn’t afford to do and they’re very very grateful that we’re able to help them in that way and it quite often prevents cruelty because you’re being proactive, you’re stopping the cycle,” Ann said.
This week’s heavy rain has forced organisers to postpone the final Million Paws Walk until Sunday 29 June.
The event has raised more than half a million dollars since its inception and become a staple community event for pet lovers, but RSPCA NSW decided that the event had run its course and would no longer be held anywhere across the state.
“We had it before it was called the Million Paws Walk. It’s just grown from 100 people in 1991 to what it is now,” Ann said. “We’re the second biggest in the state after the biggest at Sydney Olympic Park.”
It has become more than a fundraiser, acting as a beacon of hope in an often troubling industry.
“At the RSPCA we do seem to see a lot of negative things,” Ann said. “But there are so many people that absolutely love their dogs and they come to support us.
“They outnumber the negativity.”
The fundraiser has seen hundreds of dogs, and pigs and ferrets, walk together for the cause over the years, and created a heartwarming community of animal lovers.
Organisers are determined to give the event the send-off it deserves on 29 June.
Ann hoped that even if people’s beloved pets were no longer with them, they would still attend in their honour for one last lap.
“I’ve seen people walk with a photo of their dog and it gets you every time,” Ann said. “It’s lovely.”
Volunteers and the RSPCA team are working hard to ensure the event gets a farewell worthy of its impact, but it will soon be back to the drawing board to find new ways to connect to the community and raise the all-important funds.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be thinking of other ways, we have to,” Ann said. “We just need to diversify.”
For more information and updates on the event visit the RSPCA Million Paws Walk website.
