We're feeding
Community Pet Food Outreach
We have distributed over 40,000 pounds (Aug 2024) of pet food since opening Furbish Thrift in February2023. This community outreach program is growing rapidly as we work to move the needle on this basic need.
It is more than a bag of dog or cat food. Providing pet food helps animals in obvious ways but there is more to the story. Food insecure people will feed their pets before themselves, many times giving their pet their own food. So often a pet is the main source of companionship for people facing challenges. The emotional support pets provide is essential for many of the elderly facing isolation. Many housing insecure people will chose their pet over shelter. We have learned that helping pets builds trust so that other forms of assistance may be accepted.
WAHJF has been actively building relationships with animal welfare organizations in the greater Richmond area. As we listen and learn, we find more ways that help is needed.
Furbish Thrift Pet Food Pantry – Furbish Thrift hosts and maintains a freely accessible pet food pantry at our store location stocked with dog and cat food. We currently distribute over 100lbs of pet food each business day through the store pantry. Those in need can help themselves and those with resources to share can donate food. These community pantries are a highly successful way to support and engage the community. We purchase food in bulk and accept larger donations from manufacturers and retailers, process and redistribute them.
Our first satellite pet food pantry located at Senior Connections on Semmes Avenue
The cost for this program is maintaining the retail and storage space, food purchases to supplement community donations and marketing to raise awareness and participation. Volunteers provide the labor.
In the community, we regularly stock 1,500 pounds of pet food in 12 neighborhood pantries each month and provide assistance in response to requests. We host larger distributions of pet food to low income, food insecure and unsheltered pet owners in collaboration with our community partners.
In July, we launched our first satellite pantry in partnership with Senior Connections on Semmes. We have plans to establish more satellite pantries in greater RVA. We spread the word about this free resource through our network of community partners including animal welfare organizations, organizations serving the food insecure and unsheltered, and social media.
The Future
The logistics of buying pet food in quantity and repacking it for distribution have become a bottleneck to growing this highly successful program. We have leased a space in the same shopping center a few doors down from Furbish Thrift. It is 2843 Hathaway Road and is 1,785 sq ft. The space is multipurpose and will be divided into a flex space at the front for animal programming and additional revenue generating thrift store activities. The back portion of the space would be dedicated to storage. We have distributed 40,000 pounds of pet food Providing over 250,000 meals for dogs and cats and processing area for pet food to be distributed to the community via our outreach. This space facilitates expanded volunteer activities. We plan to distribute at least 40,000 lbs in pet food in the next fiscal year which includes 100lbs/business day in the Furbish Thrift Store Pantry and 2,000 pounds per month out in the community pantries. We have the space and volunteer workforce to increase outreach. With more funding and resources, we can do more.