Green Bay’s seventh annual Rescue Roundup brought local rescue organizations, volunteers and animals looking for homes together outside the east-side Petco on Sunday, Oct. 4. Community Paws of Wisconsin organized the gathering, pairing an afternoon with adoptable pets with fundraising for local services that help people care for animals.
The event listing on Albert’s Dog Lounge’s website scheduled the free, family-friendly gathering from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Petco, 2390 E. Mason St. It invited neighbors to meet local rescue groups and their foster pets, and listed a silent auction, raffles, food trucks and door prizes. The event information said well-behaved pets were welcome and that proceeds would support community pet-food pantries, wellness clinics and safe fostering for pets of domestic-abuse survivors.
WBAY reported the next morning that multiple rescue groups joined the event. Organizer Steven Parise described the roundup as a way to build community involvement and introduce pets looking for homes to potential adopters. He said the event began in 2019, with turnout and adoptions growing over the years, and that holding it outside Petco helps reach animal lovers already shopping there.
For Community Paws, the roundup is one of its biggest fundraisers of the year. WBAY reported that money from the silent auction and raffles helps stock the organization’s pet-food pantry, support its wellness clinic and foster pets for domestic-abuse survivors in transition. Parise also said pantry need had grown considerably this year. The group was seeking dry dog food and cat food, he told the station.
The event also brought other local rescue groups into the same public space. Lucky 7 Dog Rescue was among them. WBAY described the organization as entirely foster- and volunteer-run, a model that makes community participation central to how many dogs it can take in. Volunteer Olivia Biskobing said Lucky 7 brings dogs from overcrowded shelters in the South, but can accept them only when people are ready to foster them.
Biskobing told WBAY that the rescue continually needs both foster homes and volunteers, even people who can offer a temporary stay. That detail showed how a short commitment can matter: when foster homes are unavailable, the group cannot bring in additional dogs from the shelters it works with. The roundup gave groups such as Lucky 7 a chance to explain that need directly to people who came to meet animals or learn about rescue work.
Fostering and adoption are different ways to help. A foster home provides temporary care, while an adopter offers a permanent home. WBAY’s report did not say how many dogs Lucky 7 brought to the event or how many found homes that day, but Biskobing’s comments made clear that the rescue’s capacity depends on having people willing to open their homes, including for limited periods.
The fundraiser connected that volunteer effort with practical support for pets and their caregivers. The event listing names the pantry, wellness clinic and foster program as beneficiaries of the proceeds. WBAY reported that the fundraiser helps support those services, while Parise’s request for dry dog and cat food reflected an immediate need at the pantry. Neither report broke down how much money went to each program or how much food was collected.
For visitors, the format offered several ways to take part without making adoption the only focus: visitors could meet foster pets, talk with rescue groups, contribute through the auction or raffles, and learn what volunteers need. The sources do not give a total attendance figure, but they document a gathering that connected the public with several organizations working around animal care.
Rescue Roundup lasted one afternoon; the services it supported operate beyond the event. The reporting establishes that local groups shared the Petco gathering, that Community Paws used it to raise support for ongoing programs, and that Lucky 7 was looking for foster homes and volunteers. It does not establish how many animals attended, how many were adopted or how much the event raised, so those results remain unknown.
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