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Lisa Morris has been an APEX member for many years. She is an entrepreneur, investor, family office executive, and philanthropist, and she is passionate about demonstrating that you can still make significant returns while investing in people, purpose, and planet.
“Before you get a dog, you can’t quite imagine what living with one might be like; afterward, you can’t imagine living any other way,” Caroline Knapp wrote in “Pack of Two.”
That was exactly my life with my dog Winston Jones, the love of my life, until two years ago, when he was diagnosed with incurable cancer. Saying goodbye to him broke something open in me, the kind of grief that makes you feel like you’ll never find solid ground again. So I did the only thing that made sense: I went to my local animal rescue, Camp Papillon and asked how I could help.
What they shared with me broke my heart open in a new way. There’s a quiet, painful link between domestic violence and animal rescue — because our local women’s shelter isn’t zoned for pets, women ready to leave abusive homes were choosing to stay rather than abandon their fur babies.
That moment gave my grief a direction. Within a year, through hard work, I raised the funds to establish Winston’s Rescue Room — a special program where pets can be fostered while their people heal, whether they’re escaping violence, entering treatment for addiction or mental health, or facing a hospital stay they have been too afraid to schedule.
The causes closest to my heart are the ones where I can help be a voice for the voiceless: animals, children, and people who are suffering and just need a practical solution.
Now we just need other generous souls to help us sustain the costs of running this program. There was no better legacy I could create in Winston’s honor than a program that helps animals and their humans.