About
Mindy Falzarano
Founder & Board President
Mindy launched Happy Animal Project, Inc. (HAPI) out of a deep love and respect for all animals. It has been a dream of hers for a very long time. She grew up with animals and always found them to be comforting and healing, especially during challenging times. She has rescued several animals over the years including cats, dogs, birds, sheep, and more.
Mindy obtained an AS in General Business from Champlain College and studied Mass Communications and Filmmaking at Emerson College in Boston. She also worked for a large corporation in Boston before moving out to Steamboat Springs, CO. Her past work experience includes project management, executive assistant, and marketing in a variety of industries including tourism, education, and advertising.
In addition to being an animal advocate, Mindy also has a passion for filmmaking and learned how to tell compelling stories while studying mass communications and filmmaking at Emerson College in Boston. She enjoys telling inspiring stories through film and hopes to combine her passion for filmmaking and animals to help make the world a better place for pets, farm animals and wildlife. Happy Animal Project is a perfect way to blend her passion and experience to make a positive difference for animals.
Overall, our organization strives to provide assistance to animals in need, create and share educational content and resources, and educate people about a variety of issues affecting animals – the responsibility of pet-ownership, the importance of spay/neuter, creating change for farm animals and how they are treated and living with and protecting wildlife.
Lucy Hoffman, LMSW
Treasurer
Lucy received her A.S. from Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, her BA in Sociology from SUNY Cortland and her MSW from Fordham University. She is a licensed social worker in New York State, a member of the National Association of Social workers, is a NYS Mandated child abuse reporter and previously taught professionals and students the course in child abuse reporting.
Lucy has taught in higher education for many years as an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Concordia College and most recently Manhattanville College teaching a myriad of social work/sociology classes both in undergraduate as well as graduate. Her past professional experiences include medical social work at St. Barnabas Hospital and Sound Shore Medical Center. In addition, Lucy has worked in Hospice, Home Care and counseling young adults dealing with the adjustments of college life and personal issues.
Lucy has volunteered with The Danny Fund which is an organization that provides emotional and financial support to children and their families with catastrophic illnesses, for 16 years and served as their Board President for two of those years. She implemented the social work assessments, follow up and intervention guidelines for the fund. Lucy also assisted with the application and implementation of obtaining a charity status 501c3 and formalized the guidelines for The Danny Fund.
Lucy has also served on the Board of Directors for Hope’s Door which is an organization that seeks to end domestic violence. Research strongly indicates a link between animal abuse and domestic violence.
Lucy’s desire to become active with HAPI stems from her love of animals, placing cats/kittens in homes and wanting to end the plethora of unwanted pets in various settings.
Lucy currently serves as a consultant with a community-based organization that deals with geriatric home-bound clients and is an adjunct professor. She is happily married to Michael and they have 2 adult children, 2 cats and a wonderful dog named Abby!
Laura Palzer
Secretary
Laura grew up in what was then the fairly small community of Woodinville, WA, near the foothills of the Cascades, where her passion for the outdoors and the mountainous Pacific Northwest began. She received her degree in Public Relations from Central Washington University where she worked on the student newspaper and volunteered at the Children's Activity Museum in her spare time.
After her third year at college, she joined the "Study Abroad" program, living in Rome and Florence for nine months where she studied Italian philosophy and honed her conversational Italian.
After graduation, she moved to Idaho where she worked on a ranch for a year; then off to Hawaii for five years as an event planner for a large island hotel. Longing to return back to the mainland and the mountains, she moved to Steamboat Springs, CO in 2013 where she worked for Steamboat Ski & Resort Corporation in the food and beverage office as the Food and Beverage Office Manager. After meeting her husband in the security line at the airport, she moved full circle back to Seattle where she currently is a proud mom of two beautiful dogs that are her entire world.
Her desire to eliminate needless suffering for all animals and help them to have a better way of life is something that is close to her heart and a project she is excited to start and provide guidance and leadership to.
