Once a week, we text our friends at PetSmart Riverpark to order a pallet of litter, present our phone number (Treats points!) and credit card and make small talk as a PetSmart staffer forklifts 1,250 pounds of ExquisiCat unscented paper pellets into the truck bed. Back home, distributing fifty 25-lb bags with a torn rotator cuff and achy lower back is the worst part of the week, but pooping is a measure of health in what we do and going through 200 lbs of litter a day suggests we’re doing something right.
At checkout, we’re prompted to donate to PetSmart Charities and usually toss a few bucks into the collection plate because as an PetSmart Charities grant recipient, we have first-hand knowledge that those contributions work. Since receiving a grant back in January, we have rescued, nurtured and placed hundreds of at-risk furry knuckleheads from rough Central Valley neighborhoods to PetSmart locations in Northern California and have hundreds more on the list.
But the real beauty of the PetSmart Charities grant is that it allows us to reach beyond easily adopteds to help those that would otherwise pass unknown. Yesterday, uber-foster mama Stephanie Yeats Cymanski texted us with the amazing news that after a rigorous screening process (”Are you ready to handle this much awesome? Are you sure?”), Frazier (blind tabby) and Squid (storm drain survivor) had both been adopted. Two once helpless wretches are now full-on heart-throbs, and neither would be wrecking hearts and litter pans without the generous support of PetSmart Charities. Frazier and Squid.
