Kansas
City Cats Benefit from Cat Food Caper
SEPTEMBER 12th, 2004
Best
Friends Animal Sanctuary Website
UTAH
- They drove from as far away as Topeka, Kansas, and Chillicothe,
Missouri. They came to Olathe, Kansas (a southwest suburb
of Kansas City) in everything from a Saturn sedan to a truck
pulling a 30-ft flatbed trailer. They went home with from
120 to 4,000 pounds of free cat food in packages varying from
1.5 oz. sample packets to 18-lb. bags.
August
25 was a hot, humid day, but they all pitched in and helped
each other load up and went home happy.
Carol
Davis had acquired free cat food from HELP Humane Society
of Raymore, Missouri, for a friend who is a feral caretaker
and for the Lee’s Summit, Missouri, Shelter. A nearby
cat food manufacturing plant had donated the food to HELP
because the bags were printed with the wrong price. When Carol
got word that still more food was available, she got HELP’s
permission to contact the plant and try to find a way to get
more of the food for area homeless cats. The plant contact
said they had about 60 pallets of food available for donation.
After
several possibilities for free transportation had failed,
a friend suggested Carol contact her friend who owns a moving
company. First he had to verify there were no regulations
prohibiting moving pet food in a truck licensed for moving
household goods. That hurdle cleared, he replied that he would
donate a truck and driver for a full day to make two round
trips to bring cat food to Olathe. That location was chosen
because The Pet Connection has a warehouse there, would be
accepting some of the donated food, and was willing for the
facility to be used as a distribution point. Pet Connection
volunteer Jason Huff supported the planning and provided on-site
assistance for the deliveries. Because there is no dock at
the warehouse, a forklift was needed to unload the truck,
and a nearby rental company agreed to donate a forklift for
the day and to send an operator over when each load arrived.
The day
started a little scarily…the forecast was for strong
storms between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m., when the second load was
scheduled to arrive, and the truck had a flat tire on the
way to the plant to pick up the first load. Fortunately, there
were only a few intermittent showers during the day, and the
travel time had been overestimated, so the truck still arrived
with the second load just after 5:00 p.m. Loading into/onto
recipients’ vehicles was completed by 7:00 p.m.
36 pallets
of cat food were distributed to 20 animal welfare groups,
low-income support organizations and feral cat caretakers.
Carol is a member of NMHPinKC and Heart of America Humane
Society. She surprised NMHPinKC with an e-mail saying this
was all set up and she wanted to designate NMHPinKC to serve
as a conduit between the manufacturer and the recipients because
the project was so in the spirit of NMHPinKC… uniting
animal welfare advocates with common goals for the benefit
of all.
A lot
of cats will enjoy the 50,000 pounds of food.
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