Here at Michigan Humane, we are proud to embrace an often overlooked but accurate ideal: A pet isn’t a pet without a family.
That is why we center our community on the whole family by connecting with integral human service partners to better support every family member – adults, children and pets – thanks to a generous grant from PetSmart Charities.
One such partnership we’re thrilled to announce is with Gleaners Community Food Bank to bring together pet food and human food resources. Families shouldn’t have to wonder where their next meal will come from, and with this exciting collaboration we’ll work together to help ensure they also don’t have to wonder whether they’ll be sharing that meal with their pets. At our Judith Caplan Phillips Pet Food Pantry, eligible clients can pick up both pet food and human food once a month, and likewise at several key Gleaners sites, guests can pick up both human food and pet food at their neighborhood mobile pantry. By joining together and bringing our individual strengths to the table, we make support for the whole family accessible to residents in Detroit.
Alongside Gleaners, we’re continuing to do important work with partners Brilliant Detroit, Forgotten Harvest, and Lighthouse, and exploring other partnership opportunities. In the coming months, our efforts will be centered around finding gaps in resources for residents and addressing pet food deserts through partnerships with human service organizations already invested in the communities we want to serve. Our intention is to be a strong asset to human service organizations, to build up and grow their support systems and empower families to be great pet owners.
There is no “one size fits all” solution to the challenges that many families in our community are facing, and these challenges are often more than any one organization can solve alone. That’s why we’re so grateful for the opportunity to work with a diversity of partners to elevate the importance of the human-animal bond, keep families together, and improve our shared ability to serve the whole family. Together, we can build a truly humane community here in metro Detroit.
To learn more about this grant from PetSmart Charities and to view the press release, click here.
Photo Credit: Michigan Humane