ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Pet owners financially affected by COVID-19 coronavirus can now apply for financial assistance through Friends of Strays to help with the cost of pet care.
"We got the idea from our CEO to launch a fund that can help pet owners and keep the animals out of the shelter and in their loving homes. It's no one's fault that they lost their job or something because of a pandemic. We want to help however we can." said Holly Clare, Communications Manager with Friends of Strays Inc.
Its called the "Safer At Home Fund" and is made possible through community support and donations. On May 5, Stray of Friends reached a record for single-day giving online as supporters donated $16,270 to start the "Safer At Home Fund." To go along with that, Friends of Strays contributed an additional $10,000 to bring the fund’s total to more than $26,000 to launch.
"We had 142 individual donors for giving Tuesday, 61 of those people had never given to friends of strays in the past," Clare said.
To be eligible for financial assistance, applicants have to be a resident of St. Petersburg and have lost their primary source of income because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Applicants seeking financial assistance can simply visit the Safer At Home page on the Friends of Strays website and fill out a short online questionnaire. Once completed, the Friends of Strays staff will go through all of the submissions and give vouchers to the awarded pet owners to use at Operation: SNIP & SPOT: Spay & Neuter and Pet Food Warehouse.
"We opened the site for applications on Monday of this week and have already had 18 people apply; most of them have multiple pets," Clare said.
Friends of Strays was founded in 1978 and is St. Petersburg oldest no-kill animal shelter. They hope that initiatives like the "Safer at Home Fund" and their long-standing history of helping animals find forever homes will prevent families from surrendering their pets because of financial strain.
"Our plan right now is to accept applications to help pet owners that are out of work because of the coronavirus because there's such a big need right now. Once society goes back to normal the plan is to keep this going as long as funding is available," Clare said.
If you would like to donate to the "Safer at Home Fund," you can visit the organization's donation page.
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