Dakin pet food aid program helps pets, families stay togetherDate: 3/6/2019 SPRINGFIELD – There are food pantries were people can turn to when life’s circumstances put them in a tight spot. But what about their pets? What happens to them when money – and food – gets tight?
“There was actually an understanding, a knowledge, at food pantries that people were sharing their food with their pets,” Carmine DiCenso, executive director at the Springfield location of Dakin Humane Society, said. “That’s a factor in [the food recipient’s] health – they’re getting less nutrition.”
The information pointed up a nutritional need for the pantry visitor’s pets as well.
Like other shelters nationwide, DiCenso said Dakin spotted the trend a number of years back and came up with an answer – it established a Pet Food Aid Program.
Locally, DiCenso said individuals could come into the 171 Union St. location anytime the adoption center is open – the hours are noon to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday – to get an emergency supply of pet food if they are in need.
“They can come in and check with or staff, or a volunteer, and let them know the need,” he said. The pet parent will be supplied with a zip-top bag of emergency food from the Center’s supply. The emergency food comes from a combination of the Center’s regular program with Hills Science Diet – which provides food for the adoption center – food donations from the public and supplies purchased using donations and program monies.
“We do find the need to buy dry cat food because we do find we service more cats [than we get donations]. We never need to buy dog food,” DiCenso said, noting that our society seems to be more dog oriented when it comes to donations, though both the adoption center and the emergency food program services two times as many cats as dogs.
He said volunteers from Sunshine Village, Agawam High School and Berkshire Hills Music Academy process the dry food donations, dividing up the bags of food – which are sometimes 50 lbs., sometimes 10 lbs. – into the zip-top bagged portions. Volunteer drivers then deliver quantities of these emergency supplies from the Springfield location to the Leverett Pet Food Aid Program, and to a number of sites in Western Mass. including the Amherst and Northampton Survival Centers, the Easthampton and South Hadley food pantries, Highland Valley Elder Services and the Amherst and Belchertown senior centers.
DiCenso said Dakin is currently seeking volunteer drivers to help keep its Pet Food Aid Program supply chain operating. “Individuals can email the volunteer coordinator through the Dakin website [at dakinhumane.org] he said, adding that donations of food are always welcome at the adoption center, and monetary donations – made out to the “Pet Food Aid Program“ – can be mailed to Union Street or made through the website. The Pet Food Aid Program link is under the We’ll Help tab.
Last year, DiCenso said Dakin distributed 27,000 pounds of emergency dry dog and cat food to needy pet parents at its Springfield and Leverett adoption centers, and through its network of other locations across the state.
“It was up by a few thousand pounds [in 2018], but that’s generally where we are annually,” he said, adding, “It’s hard to say what that translates into meals – there’s everything from a Chawawa to a Rottweiler to five cats” in a household.
“One of the things we realize – and I realize personally – is how much animals bring to our lives,” DiCenso said. “In 99 percent of the cases, people and animals are going to be happier together,” he said of Dakin’s efforts to help keep pet families whole by providing this emergency food aid.
“Yes, we are a humane society for animals, but we also realize we serve humans, too,” he added.
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