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  • 1.  How to track Pet Food Bank clients

    Posted 06-30-2025 02:32 PM

    Aloha!

    The Kaua`i Humane Society runs a Pet Food Bank and we are looking for ways to improve our record keeping for pet owners who request and pick up food. We would like to be able to keep track of how much food is distributed, number of pets served, number of families served, and if the pets are spayed or neutered. We are thinking Jot Form or something like that, but would love to see if anyone has something like this already in place. 

    Mahalo,
    Tanya


    #AccesstoCare
    #CommunityPartnerships*
    #DataandTechnology
    #PetSupportServices*

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    Tanya Ramseth
    The Kauai Humane Society
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  • 2.  RE: How to track Pet Food Bank clients

    Posted 07-01-2025 06:52 AM

    Our food bank clients come to our facility to pick up food so when they arrive, we have them sign in on a piece of paper. We just ask for their name and the number of cats/dogs that we are helping with on the paper. (It's literally just 3 columns.) We verbally ask them if their pets are altered because it is a requirement to utilize the food bank. If they aren't, we don't deny them, but we ask about their plans for getting them altered and provide resources to help with the cost of the alteration. (We have a low cost clinic and voucher program.)  Those sheets are then tallied at the end of every month, quarter, and year.



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    Nicole Johnson
    Animal Care Coordinator
    Rogue Valley Humane Society
    OR
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  • 3.  RE: How to track Pet Food Bank clients

    Posted 07-01-2025 02:31 PM

    Do you keep track of how much food is given to each person/pet? Is that the third column? 



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    Tanya Ramseth
    The Kauai Humane Society
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  • 4.  RE: How to track Pet Food Bank clients

    Posted 07-01-2025 03:01 PM

    We re-bag all of our food into gallon Ziploc bags. Max is 1 gallon Ziploc bags (or small unopened bag) per animal since it's meant to supplement the food that they are already buying for their animal. However, each person can receive a max of 4 bags of any one type of food. So if they have 6 cats and 5 dogs they will only get 4 bags of cat food and 4 bags of dog food. We don't track the wet food since we don't purchase it for the food bank.

    We are in a rural area however in April we fed over 1200 cats and around 550 dogs. 

    We also have our animeals program which is does food deliveries to elderly clients. And we have those animals weights and have calculated how much food they require each month and deliver that amount.



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    Nicole Johnson
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  • 5.  RE: How to track Pet Food Bank clients

    Posted 07-01-2025 09:35 AM

    We use a combination of our shelter software, ShelterLuv, and Excel spreadsheets for this. The spreadsheet columns are: Last name, First name, ShelterLuv ID #, # of cats, LBs of cat food, Cans, Lbs of litter, # of dogs, Lbs of dog food, Cans, S/N?, Notes

    Notes is where we put things like if any of their pets has a chicken allergy, or how big their dogs are, or if their cat doesn't have any teeth left and can't eat kibble, etc

    We maintain a "master list" of everyone who has been approved for the program and each month we make a copy where we can fill in what was actually given out that month. So when someone picks up food we add it to the spreadsheet and also put it into ShelterLuv so we have an ongoing record that adoptions/admissions staff can also see, and where we can make notes about that individual's situation to help us serve them more effectively.

    We do let folks pick up if they haven't filled out an application, but we ask them to either do a paper copy or the online version before they come back for a second pickup. The application is mostly just their contact info and some info about their pets. We also ask what gov't assistance programs they receive help from and what forms of transportation they have access to so that we can help them find other resources.



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    Forrest Jackson
    Pet Support Services Manager
    Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh
    Pittsburg PA
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  • 6.  RE: How to track Pet Food Bank clients

    Posted 07-01-2025 02:30 PM

    This sounds slightly similar to what we are doing now - we just sometimes get bogged down and the data gets lost because it wasn't entered right away... Glad to hear other shelters are doing this as well!



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    Tanya Ramseth
    The Kauai Humane Society
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  • 7.  RE: How to track Pet Food Bank clients

    Posted 07-02-2025 09:28 AM

    How are you using ShelterLuv Track food pantry items?



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    [Sharon] [Esempio]
    [Manager]
    [Paws Fur Recovery]
    [www.pawsfurrecovery.org]
    [Indiantown] , [FL
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  • 8.  RE: How to track Pet Food Bank clients

    Posted 07-02-2025 11:13 AM

    Just in a memo on the person record. We have a memo type "Pet Retention" and every time they pick up we add the date and amount of food that they took. It is pretty easy to get behind on this, but having their SL ID # on the spreadsheet means you can just copy/paste it into the URL and jump between records pretty quickly. It's easiest if you just update it at the time of the interaction.

    Each pet retention client has one memo with all their pick ups and another memo (sometimes multiple) where we keep track of anything notable from our interactions with them that we might want to reference later. 



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    Forrest Jackson
    Pet Support Services Manager
    Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh
    Pittsburgh PA
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