Alex Tonner and Jon Grobman
The Chargers and Chargers Impact Fund are proud to nominate Alex Tonner and Jon Grobman as our 2023 Inspire Change Changemaker nominees and recognize them for their outstanding work with Paws for Life K9 Rescue.
In 2014, Alex founded Paws for Life K9 Rescue (PFL), an exemplary organization that works with Los Angeles city shelters and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to "[save] and [transform] the lives of animals and people through innovative canine-centered programs that provide purpose, support, and opportunity through the Prison/Re-Entry Program."
While PFL has many exceptional programs, the Chargers are honoring Tonner and Grobman specifically for the work they do in their Rescue Prison Program. This program provides incarcerated people with the opportunity to become animal trainers, with the goal of taking overlooked and unwanted animals from shelters and training them to be amazing pets to better their odds at adoption. A select few dogs with the right temperament move on to become service animals for military Veterans. The program offers new life for shelter animals, but their work with incarcerated people is truly inspiring and offers the men who participate a chance to become more than their sentence or the worst thing they have done.
As of 2021, 39 Paws for Life incarcerated trainers and participants have had their sentences commuted, including the organization's now Chief Operating Officer, Jon Grobman. Originally sentenced to life in prison, Grobman "became the state's first-ever beneficiary of a "Recall of Commitment" from the California Department of Corrections".
Thanks in large part to Tonner's vision and leadership, and Grobman's work with incarcerated individuals, Paws for Life K9 Rescue continues to grow. In 2023, the Chargers began working with the organization to highlight River, a service animal in-training at California Medical Facility in Vacaville. This past year, Chargers Owner, Alexis Spanos Ruhl and Chargers staff visited the prison to meet with the prison administrators and the program's incarcerated trainers.