Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi, I'm a volunteer at Brandywine Valley SPCA near Philadelphia. We use PetPoint to manage animal intake, care, adoptions, outcomes, etc. We currently also (try to) use it to manage the people eligible to receive food assistance, how much food they have been given, what animals they own, etc. Because it isn't really designed to manage food dispensed it can be too complex to use, therefore the data on how much food was given over time is not as accurate as it should be. And using data extracts to analyze things (e.g., how much food has been given per person, per shelter site, over time) is challenging.

I have been developing a simple app specifically to manage this - list of people by site, what animals of what type and characteristics they own and used to own, and what food of what types has been given to them on what date. It isn't web based, but could be installed by anyone (with some setup). The attachment shows what it looks like.

Shelters would not need to buy any software to use it. It does require a Windows PC to run on (as many PC's as you want for simultaneous use). My intent is to let anyone use the app for free, and I could help set it up on a volunteer basis. You'd probably need someone local (e.g., a volunteer) with some technical savvy to help in use.

For those technically inclined it is built using Microsoft Access and stores the data in a database (SQL Server, which can be hosted inside a network or in the cloud). I would be building reports (such as, food given over time, trend of animals owned aka "herd size" by person over time, etc.) but the data could be used with most any tool to do your own.

If anyone might find this useful please comment or private message.

#AccesstoCare
#DataandTechnology
#PetSupportServices*

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Peter Isakson
Volunteer
Brandywine Valley SPCA
PA
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Thanks for sharing the details of what you've been working on. It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into tailoring the app for food pantry program needs, especially with the ability to track households, animals, and food distributions over time. The reporting features you mentioned, like food trends and changes in herd size, would definitely be helpful for shelters trying to understand demand and resource allocation.

I'm curious, have you tested it with multiple sites or just at Brandywine so far? Also, since it runs on Microsoft Access and SQL Server, do you see any limitations for smaller shelters that may not have much technical support available?

Appreciate you making this accessible to others, having options beyond PetPoint for pantry tracking could be really valuable.

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Saranggre Will
N/A
N/A
CO
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It' still in development, so no large scale testing, but I have verified it works using a PC at the shelter.

Smaller shelters could use a configuration where it uses the Access internal database, so they'd just have to install the Access free runtime. Somewhat larger ones that have a LAN could host the database file on a share, so multiple people could share the data, and SQL Server wouldn't be needed. More sophisticated ones could install the free SQL Server Express on an internal machine acting as a server, or use Azure SQL Server in the cloud.

The latter requires an Azure subscription and when SQL Server isn't paused (after some period of inactivity) it uses compute seconds, whch cost. But nonprofits can get a subscription with $2000 of credit annually, so this approach should actually not cost anything.

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Peter Isakson
Volunteer
Brandywine Valley SPCA
PA
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-26-2025 09:50 PM
From: Saranggre Will
Subject: Seeking info on how data is managed for Pet Food Pantry programs

Thanks for sharing the details of what you've been working on. It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into tailoring the app for food pantry program needs, especially with the ability to track households, animals, and food distributions over time. The reporting features you mentioned, like food trends and changes in herd size, would definitely be helpful for shelters trying to understand demand and resource allocation.

I'm curious, have you tested it with multiple sites or just at Brandywine so far? Also, since it runs on Microsoft Access and SQL Server, do you see any limitations for smaller shelters that may not have much technical support available?

Appreciate you making this accessible to others, having options beyond PetPoint for pantry tracking could be really valuable.

------------------------------
Saranggre Will
N/A
N/A
CO
------------------------------

This is wonderful! We are interested in the application when it's up and running. It's always a struggle to keep track of statistics in our Pet Food Pantry.

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Animal Protection Society - Friday Harbor
Private, Nonprofit Animal Welfare Organization
Friday Harbor, Washington
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It is still in progress, trying to make it easier for a shelter org to deploy it, especially if you choose to use a "real" database.

I have a question. The design is based on a list of participants (people who get the food), where each person is associated with a site (in case you have multiple sites and want to track by site). When they are given food (or later, if the amount is written down for eventual data entry) the amount of food of each type is recorded with the date given. That way, you can track how much of what type was given out over time to enable you to see trends of how much food you need to bring in.

The list of food types is a pull-down menu and then you type in the numerical quantity. At present this is the list of food types you can select:

Food Types

Food Type
Dry Dog Food Pounds
Dry Dog Food Gal Bags
3 Oz Cat Food Cans
5.5 Oz Cat Food Cans
13 Oz Cat Food Cans
Dry Cat Food Pounds
Dry Cat Food Gal Bags

Does this seem right? I could also design it so at first setup each shelter can define the list they would like to use.

I also will probably add a feature to let you import the names of participants from a spreadsheet, in case you already manage these in some way. Is this of interest, that is, do many of you already have some sort of spreadsheet or database with the list of people who have registered?

Thanks!

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Peter Isakson
Volunteer
Brandywine Valley SPCA
PA
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-06-2025 02:51 PM
From: Alex Forgie-Williams
Subject: Seeking info on how data is managed for Pet Food Pantry programs

This is wonderful! We are interested in the application when it's up and running. It's always a struggle to keep track of statistics in our Pet Food Pantry.

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Animal Protection Society - Friday Harbor
Private, Nonprofit Animal Welfare Organization
Friday Harbor, Washington
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I would love to be notified when this is available! 

Thank you 

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Stephanie Johnson
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It's close to being available, at least as a beta test. See more info here.

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Peter Isakson
Volunteer
Brandywine Valley SPCA
PA
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-08-2025 06:25 AM
From: Stephanie Johnson
Subject: Seeking info on how data is managed for Pet Food Pantry programs

I would love to be notified when this is available! 

Thank you 

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Stephanie Johnson
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