Pantry stocking at Humane Society of Harrisburg Area. Photo courtesy of Humane Society of Harrisburg Area.
On a visit to Harrisburg Area Food Pantry, Wally Nieves of Steelton selected meat, bananas and a bag of dog food that had just been put on the shelf.
The dog food would last her two-pound toy chihuahua, Cleo, quite some time, she said gratefully.
“The way the money’s tight right now, you have to think about what you’re going to buy and what you’re going to eat,” she said. “Healthy food costs a lot.”
In 2025, American pets gobbled up $67.8 billion in food. Well, cats probably sniffed at half of theirs, but nonetheless, pet owners shell out that money—more than $300 per pet per year—even as inflation and soaring gas prices squeeze household budgets. Half of all pet owners struggle with the everyday expenses of food and care, but four out of 10 will choose their pets’ well-being over their own, according to the ASPCA.
In the Harrisburg area, animal rescues, volunteers and food pantries are filling the gap. They provide food that could prevent surrenders and that helps pet owners, including the homeless, care for their fur babies through good times and bad.
A Godsend
Retired Williams Valley School District Superintendent Diane Niederriter was volunteering for two pet rescues when she noticed that people often donated pet food and supplies after their pets died.
The rescues couldn’t use every donation, so “in lieu of throwing it away, I decided there’s got to be an avenue out there to get this into the hands of people who can really use it.”
As Niederriter started gathering donations, word got around to neighbors, friends, businesses, pet stores, nonprofits and rescues.
“I will find a place for it,” she pledged.
By the summer of 2024, she started weekly runs of pet food and treats to the Harrisburg Area Food Pantry, operating from the Harrisburg Area YMCA Camp Curtin branch.
Her Wednesday drop-offs are so eagerly anticipated that some clients choose that day to make their people-food visits. In 2025, Niederriter brought about 10,000 pounds of pet food. She buys some herself, on the grounds that, “I retired seven years ago, and I have enough. I love animals and just make it my thing.”
On a recent Wednesday, the 255-pound delivery filling the ginormous trunk of Niederriter’s car was heavier than usual because some donated canned food made it into the usual supply of dry food.
“It’s only a Ford Fusion, but as long as it holds golf clubs and dog food, I’m good,” she remarked.
When she gets large bags, such as donations of returned dog food from Susquehanna Township pet store Abrams & Weakley, she will repack them into smaller bags. Sometimes, neighbors whose pets snub a new food put the still-good rejects on her porch.
Pantry clients can usually get one bag of dog and cat food. How far it goes depends on the pet’s size, but recipients appreciate the help with the family food budget, said Harrisburg Area Food Pantry Executive Director Deidre Lenker.
“Our model here is to give a small amount to as many as possible,” she said. “This isn’t intended to feed your dog for a month. Have a little, let the next person have a little.”
For documentation purposes, Feeding America calculates a fair-market value of $1.97 per pound of people food distributed by pantries. The Harrisburg Area Food Pantry did its own market sampling and came up with $2.35 per pound of pet food.
“So ironically, pet food is more,” Lenker said.
Few people have the time and vehicles to collect and distribute pet food, said Niederriter. Lenker and the pantry are “a godsend to the people here,” she said. “I bring it, and she hands it out.”
“I’m telling you, it goes fast,” Lenker chimed in. “It never lasts more than four days.”
“I could bring double,” Niederriter added, “and it would be gone.”
Definitely Helpful
About twice a month, Amber Ribera gets a call from Niederriter offering pet food that Ribera can share with the unhoused people of Harrisburg.
Longtime volunteer Ribera, of Hummelstown, can’t put a number on the people she helps every week at Harrisburg’s Miracle Community encampment and around the Dauphin County Courthouse in downtown Harrisburg.
But she believes she could be channeling Niederriter’s offer of food, treats, beds and jackets to some 20 cats and 20 dogs.
“Whatever Diane gives me, I hand out,” she said. “It can vary. I’m thankful for the donations that she does give me. It’s definitely helpful.”
For unhoused people, a pet is “definitely a companion,” Ribera said during an ice run for Miracle Community residents. “In the winter, it’s definitely warmth. Some of our friends were housed and unfortunately lost their room or their apartment and ended up in a tent, and their family member, which is a pet, came with them.”
Area shelters do not allow residents to bring pets, according to Ribera. When she arrives with pet food, “They love it. Some of our friends say, ‘Amber, hold off on dog food right now. I have way too much.’”
Other organizations help weave the fabric of support that keep pet family members with unhoused people, Ribera said, including the Humane Society of Harrisburg area, which helps with spay/neuter, vaccines and licenses.
Ribera tries not to judge the wisdom of unhoused people taking on pets “because I don’t live that life,” but as she works side by side with them, she has never seen a pet mistreated or untended.
“If that’s what gives them company at two in the morning when they can’t sleep, so be it,” she said.
Full Circle
Amanda Brunish was wearing a Humane Society of Harrisburg Area shirt when a man approached her at Walmart.
“I love my dog so much,” he told her.
When all he could afford was hot dogs, that’s what they both ate. He didn’t know what he would have done without the HSHA Pet Food Bank, and now that he was better off financially, he was donating food when he could.
To Brunish, it was a full-circle moment.
“It was so cool to meet someone who used it, was able to keep their dog because of it, and pays it forward now,” said Brunish, the HSHA director of advancement.
In 2025, the HSHA Pet Food Bank distributed about 30,000 pounds of pet food—averaging 2,500 pounds a month, compared to about 3,000 pounds a month so far this year.
“That definitely can be attributed to there being a greater need,” she said, as well as to rising awareness of HSHA services. “With the economy and the way that it is, it’s certainly harder for people to be able to meet the needs of their pets sometimes, so we want to be able to bridge that gap to keep pets in their homes.”
When filling the gas tank consumes big bucks, pet food purchases become a challenge, and HSHA can help those “in an in-between situation with their budgets,” she said.
The food bank and other supports, such as HSHA’s expanding low-cost veterinary services, dovetail with the HSHA mission—not only to shelter and find homes for pets but to help them stay there.
“When people think shelters, they think of adoption, which absolutely they should, but the other part of the coin is, how do we keep animals in the loving homes they already have?” said Brunish. “That’s offering safety net services.”
Pet food suppliers include individual donors, local organizations and Mission Central, said Brunish. HSHA is grateful when businesses hold pet food drives, supplying food destined for shelter animals and, sometimes, the food bank.
“People donate great food,” she said. “It’s definitely an effort to continuously get the food in. The community support helps in so many different ways. When we’re able to keep a pet out of the shelter, that means we can help a pet in need. Everything is tied and connected.”
When someone wonders why Niederriter does her pet food volunteer work or says that people should get a job, she has a response ready.
“Sometimes, it’s their only family,” she said. “If they have a dog and that’s their family, they should keep it. The barrier of trying to feed it—society should help people that are less fortunate.”
Wally Nieves, the Harrisburg Area Food Pantry client, is equally generous with the food she picks up for her tiny Cleo.
“If my neighbor needs some, I’ll pass it on,” she said during her Wednesday morning pantry visit. “People that work, they don’t have this thing to come here to. Since she has puppies, I help.”
For more information on the Harrisburg Area Food Pantry, visit www.hfoodpantry.org.
For more information on the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area, visit www.humanesocietyhbg.org.
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