Alberta Animal Services in partnership with Red Deer Food Bank’s Kibble Kitchen have received over 10,000 lbs of pet food to give to those less fortunate.

“We’re seeing an increase of families needing pet food,” said Erica Coomber, director of operations at Alberta Animal Services.

Coomber and Alice Kolisnyk, deputy director at the Food Bank, have been running a program in partnership since 2014 called Kibble Kitchen, where citizens in the community who are less fortunate can come to the Food Bank or Alberta Animal Services to get pet food for their animals.

They began their recent food drive in May, having it run for a month.

The almost 10,000 lbs of food has come mainly from Alberta Animal Services’ partner Petland Canada, along with other retail partners including Tail Blazers, Global Pet Foods, Pet Valu and a large donation from Hagen International.

“And plus the amazing citizens of Red Deer, they’ve really shown a lot of support with our food drive, so they buy food and they bring it in. We even had two young girls come and they asked their community to support us and got a whole trunk load of food for us.”

Kolisnyk added, “The community of Red Deer always comes out and supports whatever cause that the Red Deer Food Bank or Animal Services has. The Kibble Kitchen is going to be full and our clients are going to have lots of food for their pets.”

The donation of this food will be able to feed hundreds of pets a month.

Kolisnyk said, “Since we have the food on hand we won’t necessarily have to turn people away.”