Bay Area Paw-rade Pet Walk, Best-dressed Pet Contest, Pet Wellness Festival This Weekend

WALNUT CREEK, CA — For 24 years, the Bay Area community has gathered with family and friends (including the furry ones!) to enjoy a fun day out for a good cause. Joybound Around Town — formerly Animal Rescue Foundation’s (ARF's) Animals on Broadway — returns Sunday, May 19.

The event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1275 Broadway Plaza in Walnut Creek, is a community celebration of the special bond between pets and people, and the happiness and well-being it brings to families and communities.

The day begins at 10 a.m. with the Paw-rade Pet Walk, a fundraising walk where teams and individuals, joined by their four-legged pals, take a one-mile stroll around Broadway Plaza in Downtown Walnut Creek to raise "fun" and funds for Joybound’s programming that forms, supports and elevates the human-animal bond.

Festivities continue with the Pet Wellness Festival, which runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and features animal product and services booths, games and entertainment, including the popular Best-dressed Pet Contest on the main stage at 11:30 a.m. Adoptable animals from Joybound and partner shelters will be onsite, ready to go home with a loving family. All fees for Joybound adoptions at the event will be sponsored by Pet Food Express.

Joybound People & Pets hopes to raise not only awareness but $100,000 through the support of individual and team fundraisers, sponsors and donations. Funds raised will go towards Joybound’s work rescuing and finding loving families for dogs and cats; critical veterinary care and resource support to keep animals safe, healthy, and with their families; therapy and service-animal programs; training and learning resources for all pet families; vocational training, and more.

Joybound Around Town on Broadway community partners include Club K9, Contra Costa Water District, HardyPaw, Guide Dogs for the Blind, JUNKED: Powered by Veterans, and Woodiwiss Painting.

Sponsors include Purina, Broadway Plaza, Nylabone, Perfect Star Heating and Air Conditioning, Pet Food Express, PNC, Treatly, VCA Animal Hospitals, Veterinary Emergency Group (VEG), Boehringer Ingelheim, DLHA Law Group, Injoya, Bronze: Charles Schwab, Denon & Doyle Entertainment, Diablo Subaru of Walnut Creek and Modern Animal.

Joybound People & Pets Alliance, formerly Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF), is a privately funded nonprofit based in Walnut Creek. With dog and cat rescue and adoption at the heart of its mission, Joybound forms, supports, elevates, and celebrates the human-animal bond through services such as training and veterinary care, food and supply assistance, therapy and service-animal programs, and rich learning resources for all pet families. We serve our community through programs for children, seniors, Veterans and animal guardians who need a helping hand to keep their pets in safe, healthy, forever homes. Joybound’s goal is for every adoption story to become a lasting tale of friendship, love, and mutual happiness.