Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

CARTHAGE, Mo. — Families facing tough economic times sometimes have to make difficult decisions when deciding where to spend their limited budgets.

Carthage Humane Society Director Renee Minshew said her shelter receives calls frequently from families who say they do not have the money to buy food for their pets and keep food on the family table.

“Every day I get calls from people who say, when I ask them why they’re surrendering their pet, they say, ‘I don’t want to, but I can’t feed my kids and my dog too right now,’” Minshew said. “I have three dogs at home, and if I could not afford to buy food for them, I don’t know what I’d do. It just breaks my heart.”

Minshew said with the help of anonymous donor, the Carthage Humane Society has opened Miss Wally’s Food Barn, a food bank to help families keep their pets when facing tough times.

The donor provided a small storage shed shaped like a red barn, and donations from the community have filled the shed with bags of hard and soft dog and cat food, pet treats and other items to help families and their beloved pets stay together.

Keeping pets with families

Minshew said the shelter started giving out items from the food barn in December. Since Dec. 1, the shelter has provided food for 67 families to feed 347 pets.

On Dec. 8, the shelter received and set up the storage shed.

“We had a local couple here who want to remain anonymous … but we don’t have anywhere to store food for the public,” Minshew said. “So they purchased our food barn for us. Then I went to the public and the community and asked for donations to stock that. We’ve been blessed. We’ve been able to stock it for food for dogs and cats, and there’s even litter in there. We had straw before the cold weather hit that we gave away. We’ve even got treats.”

James Linder, Carthage Humane Society shelter manager, said the food bank is named for Miss Wally, a black and white pit bull terrier who lived at the shelter for several years.

Linder said the food bank is meant for people who are really trying to make ends meet but are having a hard time.

“No animal really needs to be in a shelter; they need to be given homes for sure,” Linder said. “For the ones that wind up here, it’s rough on them and it’s rough on us. It’s a labor of love to work at the shelter. We do everything we can to make them as comfortable and happy and healthy as we can, but there’s not enough hours in the day or enough people on the clock to be everywhere and do it the way we’d really like to. So it’s important that we keep animals at home, and if a little bit of food helps people keep their pets at home, more power to them.”

Minshew said the shelter asks that people fill out and sign a form telling how many animals they’re feeding.

“We say, ‘It’s all right,’” she said. “Come out, we’ll feed your dog. Come out, get the food and things will get better, and somewhere down the road whenever your situation improves, buy us some food for the food barn and help pass it on to others in the community who are having a hard time.”

‘We just need a win’

Minshew said the shelter runs the food bank as an operation separate from the shelter.

The community has been great in answering her online pleas for help, she said. She said that means the shelter won’t have to raid its own food pantry for food, keeping that supply for the public.

“If it comes down to us having no food for the shelter, one of us will go to town and buy food out of our pocket,” Minshew said. “Then I go on Facebook and I go to the community and say hey, we desperately need some cat food or we desperately need some puppy food, whatever it is that we’re out of. The community is fabulous — they support us, they come through for us. Recently, we had 22 dogs in the shelter without beds a few weeks ago because we had so many and we got almost 40 beds donated to us. People just ordered them and had them shipped to us. It makes me tear up. I am so grateful to the community.”

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By admin