Animals (and Humans) in Disaster, EMPTY BOWL PET FOOD PANTRY INC,

To have neighbor helping neighbor through the magic of animals in these challenging times.

To work to change the paradigm that disasters have to be natural and community-wide to a disaster is just as devastating to someone who loses a job,or home, or gets catastrophically sick/injured.

To get people who wouldn't lift a finger for humans, but would for animals, to begin to open their heart through their love of animals -to the people that own them. So that a neighbor might then feed a cat, or walk a dog, to graduate to helping that neighbor go shopping for food, or to a doctors,

To help people that are overcome by loss, to begin to heal from the love of an animal, because we found that people will ask for help for beloved pets, but NOT ask for help for themselves. so we partner with Coalitions like United Way's Project Connect, Arizona Veterans Stand Down, Hopefest in Prescott, Tucson and Phoenix (25,000 clients) and non-profits, churches and food banks so that when people leave their home to get food for their pets, they can go across the aisle to get help for the humans to get back on their feet, (and REALLY help the pets long term)!

To help start-up, rural and small non-profit agencies become stronger, more knowledgeable in managing the special needs of a non-profit business, especially during disasters both in providing services and in surviving during difficult times.

To help people, especially our children, discover their humaneness (the quality of compassion or consideration for others (people or animals) through the giving to others as they can.

When we move into an area in Arizona, we are careful to NOT create dependencies or the illusion that we are there to take over. We seek to empower existing efforts and supplement gaps as we are able to, by our donations of cash and in-kind.

We seek opportunities to add to existing services, rather than creating them ourselves, this is why our model of belonging to Coalitions like those mentioned, combined with our partnerships for longer-term support and care, goes beyond the pet' needs to their human owners and supports local community building and increase household stability.
We serve all 15 counties in Arizona, directly. Through webinars and other tools, we provide service to other non-profits as well.
There are 3 phases of our work:

1) Before a community-wide disasters, we are there building relationships, becoming part of their problem-solving. We participate in community events both giving service as well as establishing ourselves as a friend, not an outsider (which for hard-to-reach communities is a critical action). In this strategy, we aid individuals to gain stability through the needs of their pets.

2) When community disasters strike, we move into our role in FEMA activation our Animal Medical Response Team (MRC#2473) through the State Health Disaster Department and work with our Maricopa Citizens citizens to help to ensure the safety and health of the=ose special groups we serve.

3) After the official emergency responders have finished with a disaster event, they leave - but frequently, the community is still trying to recover, in shock because life isn't going to be the same again. This is where we put back on our non-profit status hat, remaining to help the community become stronger then it was before.

We are seeing success. In five of the counties we have been helping, Pima, Cochise, Yuma, Coconino and Mohave, new coalitions have formed this year that we continue to aid.

Unlimited. We work in communities, rather than ask them to come to us. Therefore, we do NOT have an administrative office building expenses.

Our ability to create relationships means that over ten years, $3,353,752 of In-kind Pet Food/Items and donated cash for all ​services that have been provided in the 15 Counties in Arizona since 2010.

Cash donations make the difference for how MUCH service we can give, not the giving of service.

During the Coronavirus in February 2020, we looked ahead to see that we would not get the usual donations from the assortment of Community activities we would do around the state from March to (at least) July. We also forecast the supply chain would beak down from either transportation lack or from people getting sick within our manufactures. We were ready - thanks to your donations, to hit the ground running March 1. March 10 the shutdowns started.

We served 8 food banks across the Valley of the Sun, Maricopa county, including one food bank that served chronically-terminally ill/injured patients and one that served service dog teams, we added another project of service members of those teams who were over 60, mobility challenged, medically frail and live alone, 60 emergency human food boxes a month. St Marys Foodbank released a survey that food banks are at 600% capacity during this time.

This is like a hurricane disaster response. For the first time, all 50 states are listed in the national disaster proclamation. There is nowhere to run, help is not going to arrive from the next county - or state. Starting in May, people emerge from their homes blink in the sun. of the eye of the storm. over the summer, they will begin to put together their lives or build new ones. Then, in the fall - around October/November, the other side of the eye will hit. There will be a second wave.
They will discover how frail their life is as systems collapse much faster.

The vulnerable populations we serve, will find it much harder to recover between the dark of winter and the holidays that will not be festive.

We have:
>stated to make progress with our non-profit "competitors" by aiding them and working with them for the good of the communities we serve,
>our coalitions and partnerships continue to grow across the state,
>our programs and their services continue to deepen and broaden in scope,
>our community and business relationships expand along with the in-kind donations.
> We have helped approximately 42 rescues across 'Arizona with pet food during crisis times.
> We have been able to funnel veterinary food and high-grade food to seniors, disabled, ill and injured animals at rescues to allow those rescues to spend more money on medical support and safe more animals that would otherwise be euthanized as too expensive to work with.
> We have given approximately 18,000 pounds a year of pet food to people who are severely ill or dying to help them keep their pets with them to the end
> We have given approximate 20,000 pounds of high-grade food and treats to service dogs to help people with mobility challenges remain functional in this challenging time.

What is still a challenge:
>We are slowly building and conduct classes under our social enterprise program to create a stable and routine source of revenue to be able to pay for the few expenses we must to be able to do more of what we do so well.
>In 2019, we started a separate department to help small, rural, and start-up non-profits through this tough time to provide more services to needy communities and clients.
> Phoenix dog magazine has joined our agency as Pets and People magazine to bring together pet lover support all through Arizona in 2020