Sunday, September 8, 2013

Hunger in America.....

Mom likes to watch Food Network and Cooking Channel. So when she heard they were going orange today for hunger, she was interested. Food Network supports No Kid Hungry - an organization working to end hunger in America - especially for kids.

Their website says they estimate 1 in 5 kids lives in a household that struggles to put food on the table. Which is scary....you are talking about kids that are growing and going to school and don't need one more struggle. And then mom thinks about her niece and it breaks her heart.

For anyone that works in animal rescue, we all know that pets are often returned or surrendered due to economics reason. But what if there was a resource that would help people keep their animals?  Well, there are:

Petco Foundation has a list of stores on their website that work with local people food banks. These stores accept donations and then send them to the associated food banks. The local store that mom works with donates to WARM in our area. You can search by state for a store near you.

Cat Channel lists food banks in several states and also has a link to Meals on Wheels to help seniors keep their pets.

Mom put pet food banks into her favorite search engine and got lots of hits....so the resources are out there. But we wish more shelters would point people at this option to see if they could head off surrenders.

18 comments:

  1. That does sound like such a good thing. I sure will check it out. Thanks for that info.

    ReplyDelete
  2. We wish there was an easier way to get the word out. We have a local pet food bank and our Vet always is collecting food for it. Every time we go that way we load them up with food.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is very nice. Mom is going to visit one org that rescues animals. She said she's going to bring me along. Will ask if they know of something like this. This is really very helpful.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That is nice to hear there are some resources available. Sad to think of children going hungry. :(

    ReplyDelete
  5. This really is good information, and it's frustrating that the people who need it most don't hear about it. Our largest local nonprofit shelter has a program in partnership with Meals on Wheels to help feed seniors' pets, and that seems to be the best known, probably because it works with the Meals on Wheels service. If only there was a way to integrate the pet food banks more tightly with better-known sources of human aid so people would hear about them!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm going to look right now. Thanks for the idea.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The food bank where I used to volunteer would take pet food and put it out for people to take for their pets

    ReplyDelete
  8. The organization in our area is the one we work with First Coast No More Homeless Pets. They do give out food for pets on a regular basis. Thank you for this article as it spotlights a very important topic.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I think this is so important! Young humans should not have to go hungry, and no one should ever have to give up their pets because they have fallen on hard times.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I agree with Sparkle! We are trying to find a way in Massachusetts to align people food banks with pet food and litter. Seems like that would be a good start and Massachusetts isn't doing it yet.

    ReplyDelete
  11. We didn't know that! We give directly to our shelter (of which I am an alumnus), but didn't know about food banks accepting pet food! We'll look into it for our area!
    Play bows,
    Zim

    ReplyDelete
  12. One of the local shelters has a pet food bank and our rescue group collects foods and coupons and such for it.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I doubt there is any of such organizations here. I sure wish they did, though!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I'm glad there are food banks for both people and pets, but I have to think of the idiot politicians who are always so smug over their economic achievements. As long as there is one food bank in countries as wealthy as Canada or the United States, politicians are doing a lousy job.

    ReplyDelete
  15. We didn't know about these connections between human food banks and those for pets. Mom's going to search the web for our area. Whenever our dad goes to Sams she tries to have him get an extra bag of cat chow for a couple in economic straights who is trying to care for a feral colony. But she knows that is not enough. Thanks for this very impawtant info. Purrs and hugs, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo

    ReplyDelete
  16. our shelter recently started donating some foods to the local food pantry to distribute to those who need it. It is really nice they can do that

    ReplyDelete

We love to hear from you.....