Local pet store, customers donate 10 tons of dog food to Oklahoma pet pantry

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) - A local pet store and its customers raised 10 tons of dog food for the Pet Food Pantry of Oklahoma in an effort to send it out to help people and their pets.

There was hard work taking place on the city’s northwest side Wednesday morning at the A1 Pet Emporium.

Employees and volunteers donated five pallets to the Pet Food Pantry of Oklahoma for both pets and people who really need it.

"It's truly rewarding,” the owner of the A1 Pet Emporium, Trisha Clark, said.

Clark said their business, vendors and their customers helped raise 10 tons of dog food over the holidays, including boxes full of pet supplements, canned food and treats.

"We take the product, the dry food especially, and we mix it together and then we package it into smaller bags, about 10 pound bags, and then we take it to the homes,” the pantry's executive director, Candace Beaty, said.

All of it was tossed on to a truck to head to the Pet Food Pantry of Oklahoma.

They deliver the items to low income senior citizens, veterans, homeless and disabled folks with pets. They also take it to parking lots and pass it out.

"A lot of times these people, their pets are their only source of companionship,” Clark said. “A lot of times they give up their own food to feed their animals."

Clark said her business and the pet food pantry started at the same time over a decade ago.

"We do see the need for people who are out there that that need, you know, truly need the help,” Clark said.

It’s turned into a partnership that has affected lots of lives in a positive way over that same time span.

"Just the phone calls we got from the client of how touching that was that we thought about them,” Beaty said. “I mean, you just hear in the voicemails about the tears running down their face and how special that was."

The A1 Pet Emporium also donates to the St. Francis Animal Resource Center in Norman. Some of the donated food also went there.

If you would like to donate to the Pet Food Pantry of Oklahoma, visit their website.

If you would like to donate to the St. Francis Animal Resource Center, visit their website.