ANDERSON — Susan Blake has been busy.
In the last seven months she’s distributed more than 12 tons of free pet food at Mitzy’s Morsels Pet Food Pantry, 3205 W. 25th St. A total of 24,486 pounds to be exact.
Blake, who founded the 501(c)3 Ambassadors for God’s Creatures in 2016 and under the charity’s umbrella established the Spay and Neuter Assistance Project in 2017 and Mitzy’s in 2019, said her work would not be possible without her volunteers.
“It’s definitely a team effort,” she said. “We have amazing volunteers – they are the heart of our organization.”
Blake opened Mitzy’s in April after a local unregistered pet food pantry, which financially struggled for years, suddenly closed its doors. The pantry has since flourished within the community.
Mitzy’s originally charged a minimal fee per household for the pet food distributed per household, but now it offers the food for free. The only requirement is a pet must be spayed or neutered to continue to receive pet food and financial assistance is available.
In October alone, Mitzy’s fed 143 dogs, 236 family cats and 170 feral cats. To date, Blake has helped people spay or neuter a total of 914 animals in 2019. In 2018, there were 854 animals for the entire year.
“We will reach over 1,000 by the end of the year,” Blake said.
Maleah Stringer, executive director of the Animal Protection League, had high praise for Blake’s service to the community.
“They have done a phenomenal job and they need to be praised to the heavens for what they are doing,” Stringer said. “But here’s the thing, it should not be a handful of dedicated animal advocates who are killing themselves – literally – trying to make changes in this community. We have got to get these people in this community on board to do this.”
Stringer said it could be years before the community sees results from the spay and neuter program, but Blake is on the right path.
Susie Schieve, director at Madison County Humane Society, said people who can feed their pets also keep them, thus creating less strain on animal shelters.
“She has done an amazing job,” Schieve said. “I knew it would be a success with her.”
The spay and neuter program is beneficial to pantry customers for a number of reasons, Blake said.
“When you are low income and receiving food from the pet food pantry, the last thing you need is a litter of cats or dogs, which adds financial stress and, in many instances, creates emotional distress for people,” Blake said.
“We recently received notice we will be awarded a grant by Carter Express, with the plan to help pantry customers with spay or neuter fees and rabies vaccinations,” she said. “We should be able to help 30-35 customers with the money awarded.”
They also received a grant from the South Madison County Community Foundation to provide 25 spay or neuter surgeries and rabies vaccinations to pantry customers living in south Madison County.
Blake said fundraising efforts, donations, grants and sales from a secondhand store called Mitzy’s Morsels Shop is used to fund operations. The store is open during distribution dates and dates listed on their Facebook page.
She said the overhead costs are minimal with only a liability insurance requirement, but no other expenses, so more funding can be used to assist people to spay and neuter pets.
Blake said the pet food is donated from various retailers and organizations including Tractor Supply in Pendleton, Walmart in Marion, Indy Humane Rescue Relief and FIDO. This allows them to expand their distribution sites to reach more people in Madison County.
Mitzy’s opened a second distribution pet pantry in Elwood on Oct. 5 and will be “going on the road” with the Read and Feed program. The Read and Feed program provides human food, books, and DVDs to people living in Pendleton, Ingalls and Markleville.
“Our group will hit these locations with them and provide pet food and help customers with spay or neuter surgeries,” Blake said.
Mitzy’s also makes emergency pet food available at Operation Love twice a month, for people in need of food in between pantry distributions.
“Not everyone can get to the Anderson pantry so we have strategically opened distribution sites in areas of Madison County that are in need of our services, where customers may have fewer resources like gas, or reliable transportation to make it to Anderson,” she said. “We are meeting people where they are at.”
Blake said volunteers also deliver to customers with no means of transportation when possible.
Through her efforts, Blake said they have discovered that a number of people using the pet pantry are unable to afford their pets’ vaccinations or the ability to spay or neuter their animals.
“I’d like to stress that our organization exists to help people help their pets,” she said.
Blake said Mitzy’s can always use more volunteers to help with mixing and bagging food, trapping efforts for feral cats and transportation for pet surgeries. Monetary donations help with surgery costs and supplies.
She said her goal is to reduce animal overpopulation in Madison County and the response to the programs in place have been overwhelming.
“We are just staying the course,” Blake said.
