AHRC Suffolk and RISE Life Services delivered donations of dog food and toys to Kent Animal Shelter in Calverton today to help offset rising costs of food needed to care for the animals.
Botf organizations, which provide services for the developmentally disabled, collected donations this past month to give to the shelter. Kent currently has around 20 dogs up for adoption and holds around 35 at max capacity.
“This is great. We could always use the food. We’re always getting new dogs. And I’m just very happy that these guys took the time out to bring all this stuff and really, greatly appreciate it,” Kent’s dog kennel manager Ricky Appling said.
JoAnn Vitale, the director of day and community services at RISE, said the organizations did a cooperative food fundraiser drive and community food giveaway last Christmas and decided to do an animal shelter drive this summer. “For the last month, we’ve been collecting from local grocery stores and people in the community so that we could bring all the stuff to both shelters today,” she said.
RISE also donated food and toys to the North Fork Animal Welfare League.
“I know that a lot of people come to our food pantry and they ask if we have pet food because they’re having trouble buying food for themselves.” Vitale said. “So in addition to buying food for themselves, now they have to buy food for their pets — and pets are really important to a lot of people. And the shelters are seeing people starting to turn their pets back in because they can’t afford to feed them and their families. So we’re trying to help. … Hopefully, they’ll be able to share some of this [with adopters].”
Russell Smith, a direct care staff member at AHRC Suffolk, said the individuals in the adult services program were very excited to travel to Kent to deliver the donations.
“We try to give back to the community in any way we can,” Smith said. “But this is extra special. These guys love animals. They love animals. So this is extra special because of that.”
Costs for everything have increased throughout the last year — and pet food is no exception.
Supply chain issues have caused the retail price of pet food to increase, and the June inflation rate for pet food was up 10.3% year-over-year, which was above the month’s inflation of the consumer price index, according to the news and blog website PetfoodIndustry.com.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Alek Lewis
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