:: Disclaimer :: This post contains sponsored content brought to Fort Worth Moms by Don’t Forget to Feed Me pet food bank.
Every summer, requests for assistance with pet food increases by up to 35 percent at distribution partners associated with Don’t Forget to Feed Me Pet Food Bank. When people are faced with hunger, they often end up making tough choices. When they have a pet, that pet is often first to go in the name of putting food on the table. These decisions, while tough on families, also lead to overcrowding at shelters, rescues filled to capacity, or pets just being abandoned on the side of the road. But it does not have to be that way!
Real and Immediate Assistance
Don’t Forget to Feed Me Pet Food Bank is the only organization of its kind in North Texas and the only social service agency in the metroplex solely focused on assisting pet owners with pet food. By providing pet food to local agencies, such as food pantries, senior centers, and Meals on Wheels in support of their clients, it offers an option rather than surrendering — or worse, abandoning — a family pet. Many local organizations focus on ensuring humans have adequate food and nutrition; however, those same organizations say a pet owner will often choose to go without food to make sure their companion animal is fed.
With two-thirds of Americans being pet owners, the need to provide pet food to those experiencing economic uncertainty is real and immediate. By providing pet owners with pet food, Don’t Forget to Feed Me Pet Food Bank not only ensures that owners are able to feed themselves, but that pets also receive food that is nutritionally appropriate for animals.
To help ensure local food pantry shelves remain stocked with pet food, Don’t Forget to Feed Me hosts its annual Hot & Hungry fundraising drive throughout the month of July. Together, we can continue to assist the area’s financially distressed pet owners.
Join the Cause!
- You can join the campaign by visiting dontforgettofeedme.org or Don’t Forget to Feed Me’s Facebook page.
- Organize your neighborhood to collect pet food for donation.
- Color a free DF2FM coloring sheet then share your artwork to help spread the word by visiting dontforgettofeedme.org/youth-involvement.
Hunger can affect anyone at any time, but YOU can be the difference in stay . . . or go.
- $15 can supply an emergency pet kit to the American Red Cross.
- $25 will provide 160 meals for hungry pets.
- $160 feeds all the residents’ pets in a senior center for one month.
Did You Know? Don’t Forget to Feed Me has two specialized programs.
- Home, Not Alone — Through Home, Not Alone, Don’t Forget to Feed Me provides free, pre-portioned pet food to qualified senior citizens on a regular schedule and partners with more than a dozen senior centers throughout Tarrant County. Learn more at www.HomeNotAlone.org.
- The Maverick Fund — The Maverick Fund is designated specifically to help individual pet-owning households who have experienced catastrophic events, such as house fires, tornado damage, etc., which have left the pet owner without needed resources to properly care for pets. DF2FM partners with the American Red Cross – North Texas Region to identify and support pet owners who qualify for assistance. Through this incredible partnership, the American Red Cross also stocks Don’t Forget to Feed Me’s emergency pet comfort kits on its disaster relief truck, providing immediate assistance when needed. Learn more: www.TheMaverickFund.org.
Kim Pearson, co-founder of Don’t Forget to Feed Me Pet Food Bank, met her husband while attending college at Texas A&M University – Commerce. They have been married for 18 years, have two beautiful girls, two Golden Retrievers, and live in Fort Worth. Kim works in corporate communications and plays soccer with her husband on the weekends, when she is not attending her daughter’s soccer games.
During the economic downturn of 2008, Kim was a producer in a DFW newsroom. After airing story after story of shelters and rescues being at capacity with abandoned pets, and pets being left on the sides of roads, she thought, “There has to be a way to help.” When a story came across the wire of a pet food bank in California, she knew that was it. Nothing like that was being done in Texas. Kim was brought together by fate with Terry Mullins, who had a similar goal for Fort Worth: to keep pets with their families. Together, the two women formed Don’t Forget to Feed Me, which is now in its 12th year of supporting local food pantries, senior centers and Meals on Wheels with much needed pet food for its clients.