Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi Everyone! The rescue I volunteer for is a foster-based, small rescue. We partner with Petsmart Charities and Petco Foundation, however because we are smaller and located in a rural area, we don't qualify for a lot of the grants they offer. Due to corporate changes, they are also not allowed to donate food to rescues anymore (we originally would collect the one day past expiration food from them and use the next day). With the ever increasing prices of pet food, this has really been a blow to our rescue and we are struggling on ways to get donated food to help feed our animals in our care. Here is what we have tried so far: 

1. We have setup a chewy wishlist, amazon wishlist, and are affiliated with Cuddly
2. At adoption events, we request donations
3. We have held food donation drives (this has brought in 3-5 bags of dog food)  

I would love to hear from everyone else regarding how you get food donations coming in for your rescue. If you have letters you send to companies, etc. can you please share an example template? Thank you everyone for the suggestions! 

#FundraisingandDevelopment

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Kelsey Quinn
Volunteer
Lending Paws a Hand
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We put bins at our local grocery stores. 

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Renee Milner
Facebook page volunteer
Animal shelter alliance of Rhea
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Do you have a picture to show as an example? How did you go about asking them? Some stores have told us no in the past because they don't want it in the way of their normal displays, etc. 

Thank you! 

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Kelsey Quinn
Volunteer
Lending Paws a Hand
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-27-2023 07:27 PM
From: Renee Milner
Subject: Food Donation Ideas

We put bins at our local grocery stores. 

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Renee Milner
Facebook page volunteer
Animal shelter alliance of Rhea
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Kelsey,

if you live within 50 miles of a Purina distribution site (pretty sure on mileage) you can ask them for delivered donations. Call Purina and ask about this. You can check their website to find the nearest distribution site to your rescue.

I believe Giant Grocery Stores may be open to you doing a fund raiser there. They like to involve themselves in community affairs. If you have one close by, ask or visit their site!

Lastly, to save money, our rescue uses pine pellets for litter, sold at Tractor Supply year-round and Lowes during the wood pellet oven season (winter). It keeps cost down…$6.99 for 40 lb bag, as well as smell. Look up "reverse scoop pellets" on You Tube and they will show you how to scoop to save even more. And if you are environmentally friendly….you can compost sawdust and cat poo, too! It has to be a certain heat level to kill toxoplasmosis (I forget off-hand) but my garden looks incredible! This is one way to save money so you have more to put towards food! Good luck!

Lauren Warner, owner/President

Lauren's Lost Cats

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Lauren Warner
President
Lauren's Lost Cats
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Do you have a Tractor Supply near you?  They often donate their expired food.  Walmart used to donate their damaged/expired food too years ago to us.   As mentioned, Purina for sure; we are fortunate to have them close by.    I'd check with other stores to see what they're doing with expired foods.  

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Toni Naeser
Volunteer/Board Member
Northern Chautauqua Canine Rescue
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In addition to the mentions of local hardware/pet supply stores that will offer freebies to us, we also frequently post our wishlist via social channels and local forums with our most urgent needs. We're in VT but the community tends to rally.

We're also partnering for the second year with a local Chevy dealership that throughout the month of April is running a promo called 'Fill A Truck Bed to Get the Pets Fed' -- exactly what it sounds like; they fill one of their trucks to the brim with donations of food, treats, litter, etc. It was a huge success last year and we are excited for round 2, and considering making it an adoption event one weekend as well.

Maybe at the next event, you could incentivize and say folks who bring a bag of food will be entered into a drawing for a prize or will receive X% off adoption fees?

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bonnie hiliadis
Development & Communications Coordinator
North Country Animal League
Morrisville VT
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We are also very rural. I post to Facebook with images and links to our wish lists when we are getting low, asking if anyone could pick up one or two items while they are running errands.  Our local Walmart gives us damaged items almost weekly. 
Cuddly, while a great idea, has not worked for us because our donors prefer to give straight to us. People have asked for a Venmo but there is a reason we do are not able to have one and I cannot recall why. I think it is something to do with taxes. 
Petco does donations and fundraising at the register for us. Just this week, I picked up 60 cans of cat food and dozens of tennis balls. They will also help with more needed items, we just need to let them know (such as the Iams for our sensitive stomach friends).
I have considered putting a box in store but never seem to have the time!

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Kate Williams
Manager
Animal Welfare Friends
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Thanks, Kate for all the great suggestions! How did you go about approaching Walmart for donations? They told us we had to submit a letter requesting it, which I did but never heard back from them. Any tips on how you become a partner with Walmart would be appreciated! 

I am also curious how you get donations/fundraising done at Petco. According to the adoption partner handbook we received from them, they do not allow individual fundraising or donations for a rescue that partners with them because they have their nationwide initiatives. Just curious if you spoke to a lead director of Petco, etc. to get authorization to do this.  The manager of Petco that we work with told us the same thing that the adoption handbook specified (ie: no donations), so just wondering how we can do what you do at our Petco location. 

Best, 
Kelsey  

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Kelsey Quinn
Volunteer
Lending Paws a Hand
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-26-2023 10:29 AM
From: Kate Williams
Subject: Food Donation Ideas

We are also very rural. I post to Facebook with images and links to our wish lists when we are getting low, asking if anyone could pick up one or two items while they are running errands.  Our local Walmart gives us damaged items almost weekly. 
Cuddly, while a great idea, has not worked for us because our donors prefer to give straight to us. People have asked for a Venmo but there is a reason we do are not able to have one and I cannot recall why. I think it is something to do with taxes. 
Petco does donations and fundraising at the register for us. Just this week, I picked up 60 cans of cat food and dozens of tennis balls. They will also help with more needed items, we just need to let them know (such as the Iams for our sensitive stomach friends).
I have considered putting a box in store but never seem to have the time!

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Kate Williams
Manager
Animal Welfare Friends
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Our relationship with Walmart goes back several years. Recently, we were told that we have to submit through Network for Good in order to book our bake sale dates and times. But the donation part was established a long time ago through people that knew people and they still honor it as we are the only shelter in the county.

Petco- the regional manager is big on adoptions. From what I am seeing, Petco's help depends on who is in charge of the area because our Petco is very helpful, while I have heard others are rude and do not care. I have even had offers from the staff to do cat chores once we are back using the cat condos. So it just surprises me that I hear so often that Petco/Petsmart are like this!

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Kate Williams
Manager
Animal Welfare Friends
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-26-2023 11:05 AM
From: Kelsey Quinn
Subject: Food Donation Ideas

Thanks, Kate for all the great suggestions! How did you go about approaching Walmart for donations? They told us we had to submit a letter requesting it, which I did but never heard back from them. Any tips on how you become a partner with Walmart would be appreciated! 

I am also curious how you get donations/fundraising done at Petco. According to the adoption partner handbook we received from them, they do not allow individual fundraising or donations for a rescue that partners with them because they have their nationwide initiatives. Just curious if you spoke to a lead director of Petco, etc. to get authorization to do this.  The manager of Petco that we work with told us the same thing that the adoption handbook specified (ie: no donations), so just wondering how we can do what you do at our Petco location. 

Best, 
Kelsey  

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Kelsey Quinn
Volunteer
Lending Paws a Hand
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-26-2023 10:29 AM
From: Kate Williams
Subject: Food Donation Ideas

We are also very rural. I post to Facebook with images and links to our wish lists when we are getting low, asking if anyone could pick up one or two items while they are running errands.  Our local Walmart gives us damaged items almost weekly. 
Cuddly, while a great idea, has not worked for us because our donors prefer to give straight to us. People have asked for a Venmo but there is a reason we do are not able to have one and I cannot recall why. I think it is something to do with taxes. 
Petco does donations and fundraising at the register for us. Just this week, I picked up 60 cans of cat food and dozens of tennis balls. They will also help with more needed items, we just need to let them know (such as the Iams for our sensitive stomach friends).
I have considered putting a box in store but never seem to have the time!

------------------------------
Kate Williams
Manager
Animal Welfare Friends