At some of Arizona Animal Welfare League’s early door-to-door visits, residents wanted to know who was asking about their pets. AAWL President and CEO Alessandra Navidad told KJZZ that some people wondered whether the visitors were government workers or someone else. The shelter responded by giving its volunteers badges that identify them as AAWL community health workers and explain why they are there. Navidad said that introduction helped build trust.
The badges are a small part of a larger change in how the Phoenix animal-welfare group connects with pet owners. In a Nov. 4 interview, KJZZ reported that Spanish-speaking community health workers are going into four ZIP codes near AAWL’s shelter, including the Maryvale area, to answer questions and connect families with services.
The workers are known as *promotoras*, a community-health model in which trusted local people share information and connect neighbors with resources. At AAWL, they are not veterinarians. The group developed a Spanish-language pet-care curriculum and trained its volunteers to explain basic guidance and help residents find veterinary and other services, Navidad said.
The effort grew from asking pet owners what they needed. AAWL’s community-partner page says the organization and PetSmart Charities conducted a bilingual needs assessment of more than 600 pet families living near the shelter in 2022. A 2025 open-access case study by AAWL and partner researchers describes that assessment and a second survey in the 85009 ZIP code the following year. In the 2022 survey, 55% of 543 respondents preferred receiving care in Spanish; in the 2023 survey, more than 80% of 93 respondents said they felt more comfortable with Spanish-speaking providers.
The same study reports that affordability and access were recurring concerns: 44.7% of 530 respondents said they had difficulty paying for basic pet needs, and 59.2% of 568 said they recently needed care but could not get it. Those results came from the study’s surveyed groups, not from every pet owner in the area. They help explain why the organization built outreach around neighborhood conversations and language access.
Navidad told KJZZ that AAWL’s first cohort of 20 volunteers came together in June 2026; most were women, and the program accepts men as well. She described earlier focus groups in which 90% of participants said pets were family. Participants also raised questions about vaccines and boosters, introducing a new pet, crate training, safe toys, and indoor and outdoor care. Navidad said questions from those discussions are covered in the curriculum. These are focus-group themes, not a tally of questions asked by the June cohort.
Separate from the June 2026 outreach cohort, a 2025 case study describes earlier off-site vaccine clinics in Maryvale. Promotoras helped families navigate the clinics, explained vaccine schedules and parasite prevention, and connected people with low-cost spay-and-neuter options. The clinics averaged 70 pets in three hours, according to the paper. The study says residents returned for booster vaccinations or brought additional pets when services were offered repeatedly at familiar locations. AAWL gathered feedback informally and discussed it in weekly operations meetings. These are observations from earlier clinics, not outcomes measured for the 2026 cohort.
The same study documents a 2024 Saturday clinic model that paired morning walk-in vaccinations and microchips with afternoon wellness appointments where veterinarians could address non-chronic illness. That is historical context: the study does not establish that the schedule remains current or that the June cohort refers families to those clinics. It records a prior service model, not a current referral pathway.
Navidad said community cats have come up repeatedly in Maryvale conversations as the new volunteers reach out. AAWL is still exploring what resources and spay-and-neuter support might help. She described goals of improving animal health and pet-care knowledge, and said pet-care knowledge is harder to measure.
The sources reviewed here do not evaluate the effects of AAWL’s June 2026 cohort. They describe its stated role: sharing basic pet-care information in Spanish and helping families navigate veterinary services while AAWL continues listening to what neighbors need.
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