TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – In just a few days. Lucas County Canine Care and Control (LC4) will be putting a pause on its Community Pet Food Pantry. The shelter says it’s to allow employees to prepare for the move to the new shelter on Monroe Street.
The final distribution will be this Sunday, July 20, from 10 a.m. to noon at their current facility on South Erie Street. You need an appointment. A date for the pantry program to start up again has not yet been announced, but LC4 leaders have a tentative goal of reopening in October. The shelter is also pausing its vaccine clinics because of the move as well.
So what, if any, impact will the temporary pause at LC4 have on other local pet food pantries? Toledo’s PET Bull Project is a non-profit organization that’s focused on helping people keep their pets. It offers things like low-cost training and grooming and a free pet food pantry. But keeping the shelves of the pantry stocked is an ongoing challenge.
The non-profit has been helping people feed their pets for more than a decade.
“The intention is to be a supplemental food pantry, until people can get back on their feet. But with things being harder for many people right now, we’re seeing people need help for longer periods of time, some for years. A lot of people rely on the pantry to keep their pets in their home,” Max Machon, a volunteer and board member, said.
Machon says the organization’s work has changed a lot of lives.
“There are so many people who are so appreciative when they come and get a little bit of help. It makes us happy to see that. We are all volunteers; no one is making any money. We all donate our time because we want to help the community,” Machon said.
But keeping the pantry shelves stocked is a constant concern. And because of that, the PET Bull Project had to cut back.
“For the last couple of years, it has been harder to keep food on the shelves. We used to have the pantry open once a week, but recently we’ve had to cut back to twice a month. The second and fourth Tuesdays of each month, people can come get food,” Machon said.
And with news of the LC4 pantry pausing its work, leaders here are preparing for an increase in requests for help.
“Our biggest concern is that we have enough food. We don’t want to have to close down or skip weeks because people rely on us for food and we want to be prepared if we see an uptick in the number of people needing our services,” Machon said.
There are a lot of different ways you can help. You can donate dog or cat food, supplies, money and your time.
If you’d like to learn more, click here.
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