Giving Your Extra Pet Stuff Saves Lives, Helps Families #GivingTuesday

Ok, so more the spirit of #GivingTuesday Carl and Billie Bean live in separate households, four or five blocks apart here in Manchester on Pittsburgh’s Northside. They are both cats, both female, and both went missing from their homes. We jumped into action when we learned about Carl, lending a heated bed, a trail camera, […]

NOW This Pittsburgh Pet Food Pantry Needs Your Help Delivering Winter Shelters for Homeless Cats

The Pet Food Pantry is helping our colony caretakers prepare for cold weather. We’ve procured 12 shelters BUT we need help ASAP delivering some & dropping kits off to a volunteer to assemble this weekend. Pittsburgh LGBTQ Charities is covering the costs of the kits. A large SUV can accommodate up to six. Here’s the […]

Pittsburgh Based Pet Food Pantry Seeks Donations, Will Offer Emergency Resources to Neighbors Losing SNAP Benefits

This crisis is not the time for people to relinquish their pets or feel guilty because they can’t feed them. Hi. This is Sue from the Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry, a project of Pittsburgh LGBTQ Charities. Marie and I were talking about the impact of the SNAP crisis on pet owners. […]

This Pittsburgh Pet Food Pantry Now Restocked Thanks to Our Generous Donors

Thank you to everyone who donated to our September Pet Food Drive for the Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry. We had to cancel our distribution in September due to low inventory. Marie and I spent the entire month working hard to resupply the pantry. It has been exhausting. But successful to a […]

Update: Reasons Why a Pittsburgh Pet Food Pantry is Closing Temporarily

As we announced, the Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry has to close for September because of a lack of donations. I didn’t really get much feedback. Chalked that up to there being so much wrong in the world, so much bad news that this was just more. Did I expect the calvary […]

Reasons Why a Pittsburgh Pet Food Pantry is Closing Temporarily

PET FOOD PANTRY temporarily closed due to lack of donations. We are sorry to inform our neighbors that the Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry will not be distributing in September due to lack of pet food. The pantry has over 70 registered households and caretakers. Based on Pittsburgh’s Northside, they serve families […]

Crisis alert: The Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry faces dwindling inventory, fewer donations, and more households registering

Things are dire with the Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry. I’m out of ideas. We can’t get the shed up. To get started, here’s a sweet video clip of two bonded cats born outside separately in 2019. They’ve lived here ever since. Spencer Cassadine is on the left, Kinzua on the right. […]

Contributing to This Cat Vet Visit Will Help Us Develop a New Pet Food Project

I developed a theory over 30 years ago while working in social service ministry in Western Kentucky – if we could find ways to help folx out with small problems, we’d avoid a lot of bigger problems. I saw this play out nearly daily in the rural community with no traffic lights and nearly 100 […]

Never Any Extra Food, Never Enough Food – When the Pet Food Pantry Says No

kitchen shelves with bgs and cartos of cat food

The Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry team spent the weekend packing up non-food donations like beds, trees, bowls, towels, blankets, and so forth. That’s when we realized something problematic – we are going to run out of food at the end of May. We know you came through for us in February […]

How a Community Pet Food Pantry in Pittsburgh Joined the Resistance

We don’t know what lies ahead. We won’t give you platitudes about resiliency or inner strength or toughness even though we think those are true. What we can give you is reassurance that you are not alone. The Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD Pet Food Pantry supports neighbors taking care of animals – community cats, […]