SC animal shelter was down to its last 2 bags of food. A Facebook post changed that.
This Thanksgiving, humans won’t be the only ones with a healthy amount of food on their plates.
Grand Strand Humane Society took in more than 5,000 pounds of pet food donations in just under a week after posting a “desperate plea” on Facebook. The organization was down to its last two bags of food for cats and dogs, Executive Director Jess Wnuk said.
“We were running out of food, we were literally opening our last bag of dog food and we had one bag of cat food,” she said. “We just really needed the community to step up, especially right now with COVID-19, things have been very tight. Our budget is stretched as thin as it can go and we never want to turn away an animal in need.”
Pandemic caused donations to drop
The need for more food came at a difficult time for the shelter. It was bringing in less donations than normal, but the social media call to action changed that.
“Our donations have been lower than normal all around, not only monetary donations,” said Jocelyn Emerson, the clinic’s receptionist. “And the second day after the post, we had a gentleman from the post office in a pickup truck loaded with boxes for us … We have volunteers who are coming multiple times a day and filling up the back of their pickup truck.”
Animals often come into the shelter needing expensive medical care, and Wnuk said that care is only possible through the donations from the community. If necessary, the shelter could have bought the needed food, but that would only mean less room in the budget for other essentials.
“That’s the reason that we can take in these really tough cases that eat up a lot of our budget with medical costs, because the community steps up for those things like food donations, toy donations, pet beds,” Wnuk said. “So that’s really what it helps.”
This influx of donations wasn’t a product of just one generous donor. Instead, many people making small donations were the ones who made the difference.
“That’s the most amazing thing is that it’s all been smaller donations, everyone bringing in one bag, two bags, a case of food,” Wnuk said. “That’s just the truly amazing thing is it’s been so widespread and so many people just doing those little bits that really add up to an amazing thing for us.”
Adopting animals during COVID-19
The humane society shelters dogs and cats before adopting them out and also has a clinic for vaccines, spays and neuters. Since January, it’s brought in about 2,500 animals in need of a home. At capacity, the shelter can hold around 200 animals and the shelter works with foster families for another 200-250 pets.
They’ve been operating at capacity throughout this year, partially because it’s one of the only shelters which was actively taking in animals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the pandemic, Wnuk said her staff was sure to ensure the adoptions would work long-term. They didn’t want people to commit to caring for an animal when they spent big chunks of time at home during pandemic-motivated lockdowns, only to become too busy for the pet once schedules returned to normal.
“We did see people wanting to foster, to adopt animals,” she said. “We were really cautious about making sure it was going to be successful long term adoptions so we really pushed foster to adopt to make sure once people’s schedules returned to normal they would still be able to have the time for that new pet.”
While most businesses were forced to close or slash hours, Grand Strand Humane Society didn’t shut down, limit hours or turn a single animal away throughout the COVID-19 crisis. In a way, they ended up seeing more business in the clinic because some facilities were closed or limited.
“Full-service vets were closed, but their pets still needed vaccines,” Emerson said.
