July 2, 2009 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Monday through Thursday, Joni Taylor works as an accountant. But on Friday, she caters to a very different kind of client, as executive director of Friends Involved in Dog Outreach, or FIDO, in Oregon City, Oregon.
The nonprofit group’s dog-food bank hands out roughly 4,000 pounds of food each month, Ms. Taylor says.
In addition to supplying free chow to local residents who are struggling financially to feed their pets, FIDO also supports the Clackamas County Dog Shelter by donating money, goods, and emergency veterinary care for shelter dogs.
The charity’s AniMeals program delivers free, nutritious pet meals to people with pets who also receive home-delivered meals from the organization Meals on Wheels.
“We started the program because we heard about how folks who didn’t have enough money to feed their pets would give their pets some or all of the hot meal they received every day,” says Ms. Taylor. “Currently we’re feeding a little over 200 cats and 110 dogs.”
In addition to receiving cash donations to support its programs, most of the food distributed by FIDO is donated by individuals and businesses, including Banfield Pet Hospital, which raised 14,000 pounds of food during its first annual “food raiser,” and the local food distributor Animal Supply, which regularly donates bins of food collected from broken bags stored in its warehouse.
The charity, staffed entirely by volunteers, is looking to add one more to its ranks.
“We’re hoping to put a part-time veterinarian in the shelter,” says Ms. Taylor, who has two dogs and three cats of her own.
Here Ms. Taylor sits with her dog Clancy, surrounded by bags of donated dog food.
