Tiffany Jourdonais and her partner, Blair, recently opened their own food pantry for pets after noticing a need in their community. 

My Best Friends Bowl is currently run out of the couple’s home in De Berry Estates, located at 2094 Deckard Lane. Tiffany said the pantry already has an employer identification number with the Internal Revenue Service and is waiting for approval for its 501(c) application.

The couple previously fostered dogs for 10 years but a change in life circumstances meant the couple was no longer able to do so. However, they could not sit by while they noticed an increasing trend in Princeton.

“We’re noticing an abundance of stray animals,” Tiffany said. “We also have some friends at the shelter who have seen an influx of animals during COVID.”

The genesis of the pet food pantry, said Tiffany, was a popular post on the couple’s community Facebook page requesting a pet food pantry to help provide food, leashes and other supplies.

“We discussed it and decided to give it a shot,” Tiffany said. “We have had an amazing outpour of donations, and we’ve helped several families already.”

Tiffany guessed the pantry had helped around a dozen families already, which she said she hopes is the beginning of a much bigger impact.

Despite being confined to a garage, there are several individually packaged dog food portions in plastic bags, larger bags of dog food, toys and canned cat food available for pick-up at the pantry. If owners need leashes or potty pads, the shelter has them too.

One potential expansion could be finding a partner veterinarian to help provide emergency care or lower-cost medications for families unable to afford healthcare for a pet. Tiffany said she and Blair considered having the pantry cover the cost of emergency veterinary care but they do not want the added responsibility of keeping track of money for the time being.

Additionally, the overall goal of the pantry is to help families hold onto pets rather than surrendering them to a shelter, or worse, letting them go into the city, adding to the number of stray pets, said Tiffany.

“If people are between jobs or just struggling financially because the economy is not the greatest right now, we want to be able to help these pets stay in their homes with their families,” Tiffany said. “That’s our biggest objective here: to keep pets in homes if financial hardship and feeding is what is risking them to be homeless.”

While the current impact of the pantry is welcome, Tiffany said it is looking for more donations, specifically of seven- to 12-pound dog food bags, adding that she is looking at possibly having a local delivery program for any needed pet supplies.

“We have found that there are a lot of people willing to help where they can,” Tiffany said. 

Additionally, the pantry will be trying to work with the Collin County Homeless Coalition to help provide pet supplies for pets of the homeless. 

“With the pandemic and people being hit by unemployment, over the last couple of years, it has been mindblowing to see how many stray animals are out there,” Tiffany said. “That’s really what sparked it: seeing all the homeless dogs and cats and learning that it was because of their family’s financial situation.”

So far, Tiffany said there have been daily visits to the pantry by individuals needing pet supplies. Even if the pantry lacks inventory of a certain item, they can work to try and order it or get it donated by the community.

For those picking up supplies, there is a shelving unit outside the pantry’s front door that houses the items.

“We get calls stating that there is a need for something, we put it out front and let them know that we have their item on the porch,” Tiffany said. “Then, they can come by and pick it up.”

For more information on the pantry, visit the My Best Friends Bowl Facebook page or the group’s Amazon wishlist, also found on the page.

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