Our Community & Fundraising Efforts
La Cumbre Animal Hospital is proud to support the Santa Barbara community we love — and to help animals well beyond it.
Giving back has been part of who we are for decades, from our own neighborhood to causes around the world.
Caring for Our Environment
Supporting Local Organizations
Each year, we donate to local organizations that promote animal health, healing, and the bond between people and their pets, including the Santa Barbara Zoo, Heal the Ocean, C.A.R.E.4Paws, ResQcats, ASAP (Animal Shelter Assistance Program), the Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network, and the Santa Barbara County Animal Services. We also love supporting creative community projects — look for our building bricks at the MOXI Children’s Museum and Ice in Paradise, and our sponsorship of I Madonnari.
Paw Prints for Mission Rabies
Our care reaches animals far outside Santa Barbara, too.
Mission Rabies works to eradicate rabies worldwide, vaccinating dogs in rural and underserved communities and teaching families how to stay safe. We have been part of this work for years, and we are raising funds to send one of our own team members on a Mission Rabies trip to help in the field. You can support our team’s journey with a donation made in honor of La Cumbre Animal Hospital.
We are also proud to support Worldwide Veterinary Service, which provides free care to animals in need around the world. And when we say goodbye to a beloved, long-term patient, we honor them through the Arbor Day Foundation, which plants trees where they are needed most, and the UC Davis Companion Animal Memorial Fund, which advances the health and longevity of companion animals.
Four Saturdays a Year on Skid Row
Since 2023, Dr. Olken has served as Lead Veterinarian for the Pet’s Landing clinic in the Skid Row neighborhood of Los Angeles — a free veterinary clinic for people experiencing homelessness and their companion animals.
The clinic is a genuine collaboration. It’s operated primarily through The People Concern’s K9 Connection program, in partnership with the Street Dog Coalition, which funds the veterinary effort and supplies the vaccines, medications, and equipment. Alongside the veterinary care, the larger clinic day also offers human health care and legal advocacy to the community — everything in one place, on one Saturday.
Those Saturdays come around four times a year: March, June, September, and December. At each one, the team typically serves 100 to 120 people and 150 to 200+ animals.
