It’s the last day of 2014. And you’ll need to sit down when you read this. Five years ago The Pongo Fund opened our doors for the first time. Pam Bartel was the first guest to receive food that day. She and her husband had lost good paying jobs and were facing foreclosure. They’d already given up so much. But giving up their pets Fuzzy the dog and Spaghetti the cat, pets they had adopted years earlier from a local shelter, was even more frightening. And that’s what brought them to our door. To stand in line for free pet food. A few minutes later while loading large bags of dog and cat food into the trunk of her car, Pam cried tears of happiness. Since that day we’ve been there another 7,000,000 times. SEVEN MILLION! To provide 7,000,000 nutritious meals for 70,000 hungry and starving pets. Pets that are family. Pets that stayed out of shelters. Pets that are deeply loved by people that turned to The Pongo Fund for the help they could not get anywhere else. And we’ve helped provide veterinary care and spay and neuter for more than 1,000 of them, too. Five years later we’re still here doing the work that no one else does. Staying focused and true to our mission while embracing new opportunities to expand our vision. Forever finding ways to do more for those with less. Making an impact beyond expectation. And viewed as a national model for new ways to both reduce shelter populations and to help both people and their pets. Simultaneously. Because by helping one, we really do help both. But sometimes it’s hard to tell people what The Pongo Fund does. To explain what The Pongo Fund means. To describe the work we do and why we do it. We’re a small-but-mighty volunteer driven group that has no marketing or fundraising or public relations staff to tell our story. We operate with just one paid employee. We help animals when their own families are temporarily unable to keep them fed. Dogs. Cats. Feral cats. City cats. Horses, too. Service dogs. Seizure dogs. Hearing dogs. Even Guide dogs. We help beloved animals that belong to seniors and veterans and the mentally and physically disabled. Both the employed and unemployed. We help young children whose only reliable friend is their dog or cat. And we help street kids all across the community. Because their pets are frequently the only family they have left. We work with caseworkers from the Department of Human Services and many other agencies to aid their most fragile clients. We help single moms, couples, families and far too often we’re called upon to help victims of domestic violence that sometimes have had almost everything beaten out of them save for the love of their animals. We rescued a dog named Dutch unintentionally left locked inside a truck when his truck driver dad Francis faced emergency surgery. Reuniting both 10 days later in a heartwarming story followed by nearly one million people. And we were there to comfort a broken-hearted octogenarian when both his elderly wife and elderly cat died within days of one another. He said he wanted to honor them but could not afford to donate money. So we brought bags of kibble to his home and worked with him so he could honor their memories by being part of our kibble packing team. Maybe the most loved kibble we’ve ever packed. We helped a young homeless couple make the tough decision to give up a momma dog and her four-week old puppies. A doting momma and four little tiny pups all living together inside a cardboard box inside a shopping cart. We helped them understand that selling their puppies on a bridge ramp was not the right thing to do. The momma dog, all of 14 months old at the time and still really just a puppy herself, now lives in the lap of love seven days a week. And each one of those puppies was adopted into new loving homes. But first each of them received vet care, vaccinations and were spayed. We were there to hike into the forest to bring much needed food and hope to a group of veterans who had given up on everything except their wits and their pets. Angry and suspicious, they still welcomed us with hugs and smiles. And we were there when one of our guests suffered a seizure on one of our Pongo Sundays, right there in our lobby. And in the blink of an eye one of our team, an experienced physicians assistant, rushed to stabilize, treat and comfort the stricken guest. She stayed with her until she was ok and then quietly returned to her other Pongo duties. And we pulled out every stop imaginable to help a woman on her way to commit suicide after giving up the dog she loved but could no longer afford to feed. We knew she was serious when she told us exactly how she was going to end her life. But thanks to the crisis training of one of our volunteers, we were ready to help because we knew there would not be another chance. And both are doing well today, happy and healthy together. And we were there to fight for The Howard 22, a group of 22 starving horses that had done nothing wrong except find themselves without food due to an extra rough winter. We’ve set up pet food bank distribution in dozens of locations, including some of Oregon’s largest human food pantries including Snowcap Charities, Neighborhood House, Union Gospel Mission, Clackamas Service Center and more. And numerous groups including Oregon Food Bank, Meals-On-Wheels, Oregon Humane Society, Dove Lewis Emergency Animal Hospital, Oregon Department of Human Services, Home Forward, Central City Concern, Department of Veterans Affairs and dozens more all rely on us when their own clients need pet food. Even suicide crisis lines turn to The Pongo Fund for help when their callers have pets. That’s five years of doing the lifesaving work that no one else is doing. Saving more lives than anyone ever thought possible. Work that we’ve been fortunate to do only because of you. Together we have given a chance to animals that might not otherwise have a chance and together we have given hope to families that have little else to be hopeful for. Because sometimes a simple bowl of kibble is the force that both keeps a family together and saves the lives of the animals they love. And this is why we Pongo. Thank you for being there with us. Because we couldn’t do it without you. Today is the last day of 2014. The last day you can make a charitable donation and receive a 2014 tax deduction. The last day of the year to make a difference. And we hope that you will help us prepare for 2015 with your gift today. Even better, by giving today your gift will be doubled by a group of generous donors. We have two secure giving links: • https://giveguide.org/#thepongofund • thepongofund.org/contact/donation-page/ “If you cannot feed 100, then feed just one.” — Mother Teresa With gratitude from all of us at The Pongo Fund. Because YOU are why we Pongo! Sit. Stay. Eat. Live. Give Today. thepongofund.org
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 16:50:47 +0000
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