40,000 pounds of pet supplies donated to low-income older adults in Greater Bangor

By Kathleen O’Brien, Bangor Daily News Staff

Roughly 40,000 pounds of pet food and other supplies arrived in Hampden on Sept. 25 for a local organization to distribute to low-income older adults in the area. 

The shipment contained 20 pallets of cat and dog food, cat litter and other miscellaneous items, such as ramps. The donation to Brewer-based Eastern Area Agency on Aging comes from Chewy, an online pet supplies retailer, and the Humane Society of the United States.

Maine Trailer staff offloaded the supplies and donated storage for it at the company’s Hampden facility. 

The agency will repackage the food and other supplies to give to the 400 pets who benefit from the organization’s Furry Friends Food Bank program, which helps older adults in the region care for their pets. 

Those consumers need about 12,000 pounds of materials per month, meaning this donation will last slightly longer than three months, according to Kelly Adams, nutrition manager for Eastern Area Agency on Aging. 

“Due to the rising cost of living, some Furry Friends consumers would have to surrender their pets if it were not for the monthly pet food they receive from Furry Friends Food Bank,” Adams said. 

Aside from saving low-income older adults the cost of pet food and other necessities, the program also gives participants peace of mind that they’ll be able to keep their pets at home. This is essential, Hill said, because sometimes the only social interaction their consumers have comes from their cat or dog. 

“With this program, we’re not only feeding the pets, we’re nurturing the souls of the owners,” Hill said. 

The large donation also saves the organization from purchasing the pet supplies, as the Furry Friends program doesn’t receive any state or federal funding to help shoulder the cost burden. 

This savings comes months after the organization reported it was facing a $126,000 deficit for its Meals on Wheels program, which supplies meals to more than 600 older adults who are unable to leave their homes and cannot cook for themselves.  

The shipment is the third such donation the agency has received from Chewy and the U.S. Humane Society. In 2023, the organization received 27 pallets, valued at $79,000, totaling 39,000 pounds of pet food and supplies. 

The agency, which offers a series of other food and wellness programs to older adults across Penobscot, Piscataquis, Washington, and Hancock counties, is also the only organization that can receive this kind of donation, Adams said. 

This is because the food and other supplies must go directly to consumers and cannot be resold or given to an animal shelter, Hill said. Furthermore, the recipient must have storage space and a forklift to offload the donation.