In 2006, Theresa Fazzolari was a returning student completing her bachelor’s degree in social work at Temple University in Harrisburg. She was assigned to identify a community need and come up with a way to address it.
At the time, she was interning for the Dauphin County Department of Aging and began to be concerned that the low-income, elderly, often homebound clients being served by the Meals on Wheels program might be having trouble feeding their pets.
If folks couldn’t afford to feed themselves, she thought, how could they feed their four-legged friends?
Fazzolari discovered a program in California called Animeals, created in 1984 by the Helen Woodward Animal Center after a Meals on Wheels volunteer realized one of her clients was sharing her delivered food with her cats.
Clearly, there must be elderly people in the Harrisburg area facing similar issues, Fazzolari thought. So, she drafted a flyer that was distributed to Meals on Wheels recipients.
Soon, the names of people requesting pet food started arriving, and Fazzolari was stunned.
“There was such a need,” said Fazzolari, now 49. “ I didn’t think it would take off like it did.”
Purina sent 5,000 pounds of pet food to get the group started but Fazzolari—who today distributes more than 500 pounds of food a month—soon learned how quickly supplies dry up.
Compared with non-pet owners, elderly people with pets have lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, have a better sense of security, are more active, experience less depression, and even live longer, according to research compiled by the Helen Woodward Center.
Beyond Kibble
Over the last decade, Fazzolari has helped scores of individuals keep their pets and, in turn, helped keep families intact.
Many of her early clients have passed away or been admitted into nursing homes, but new clients arrive with their pets on a regular basis.
This year, Animeals serves 57 elderly men and women and about the same number of cats and dogs. The group’s oldest client, Ann Dennis of Mechanicsburg, is 101. Animeals volunteers deliver a monthly bag of food for her cat, Marilyn Monroe.
Fazzolari, her husband Tony and her volunteers have expanded their good deeds far beyond kibble delivery.
She has enlisted her neighbor, Charles Palentz, a Navy Depot retiree, who pitches in to help with home repairs from changing light bulbs to building handrails and fixing roofs. Professional groomer LeeAnn Menut, who owns Pet Bath and Beyond in Camp Hill, provides nail trimming and bathing. Her husband Ken takes clients’ pets to vet Tracy Moussa of Animal Birth Control of Middletown, who donates most of her services, charging only for drugs and supplies.
In one case, Fazzolari dipped into the Animeals account to buy a client a tank of fuel oil when no crisis help was available from the county. “She was so grateful,” said Fazzolari. “We justified it by figuring their pet needs to stay warm, too.”
In some states, pet food delivery services operate through county Meals on Wheels programs. In Pennsylvania, most Animeals organizations receive county referrals, but are independent and must find donations, raise money and recruit volunteers on their own.
“It’s hard to believe,” said Amy Kaunas, executive director of the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area, which supplies Animeals with most of its food. “Pets are so important to older people for their mental health. Government agencies don’t get that they’d be feeding their county-funded people food to their pets if they had to.”
Every month, Fazzolari stocks up on dog and cat food from the Humane Society of the Harrisburg Area and Animal Rescue Food Bank in Wellsville that operate large pet food pantries to stock the shelves of area pet rescue groups.
“It’s amazing what she does,” said Kaunas, who has worked with Fazzolari since the program started. “Her group was one of my early partnerships when I got here.”
Fazzolari is grateful for what she gets to hand out each month, but sometimes that means lesser quality food and that animals have to eat different brands of food that come with each delivery.
“There’s no consistency,” she said. “And we struggle to fill the shelves every month.”
Just the Start
On a recent Saturday morning, Fazzolari’s porch was packed with several dozen paper bags of food, some with treats and toys sticking out.
She took a visitor to her storage facility—the not-quite bare shelves in the basement of her Camp Hill home.
“This is what it looks like after we distribute food each month,” she said, then picked up a lone donated pet bed. “I haven’t decided who’s going to get that.”
Later that morning, Larry Miller, 75, was standing outside his apartment on Maclay Street in Harrisburg, bundled up in a varsity letterman-style coat—a gift from Fazzolari—with his boxer Bronco (also wearing a coat thanks to Animeals).
When Bronco saw Fazzolari, he strained at the leash to greet her.
“Hey Bronco, how’s my boy,” she said, rubbing his head and bending down for a kiss.
Miller and Bronco, who is 7 years old, have been through some tough patches together. He’d never had a pet, but there was no question he would take over as Bronco’s caregiver after his owner and Miller’s friend, Emeric Bosak, suffered a stroke and was taken to a nursing home.
Every month for almost two years, Miller and Bronco would pile into Fazzolari’s car and visit Bosak at the nursing home until his death last November.
Fazzolari estimates it costs about $30 a month to feed a pet. But that’s just the start of a pet owner’s responsibilities. Routine vet care can run into the hundreds of dollars and emergency care into the thousands.
In 2013, Miller and Bronco were on the sidewalk just a few doors from his apartment when a pit bull pushed open the screen door of its house and viciously attacked Bronco. Miller tried to stop the mauling, but, when it was over, Bronco was lying on the sidewalk bloody and badly injured. A tearful Miller quickly called Fazzolari, who immediately contacted their vet. Bronco lost his right eye and required stitches for other wounds. The total Moussa charged Animeals was $70.
Miller said he gets by on about $600 a month, making a little extra for sweeping up street trash for landlords of neighboring properties, but knew he could never pay for regular food, let alone a large vet bill.
“I could never afford to keep him,” said Miller.
Tons of Food
Fazzolari said she would like to expand Animeals to other counties, but needs to find a sustained funding source to continue its work in Dauphin and Cumberland counties.
Her group is seeking a long-term donor and volunteers to design a website and help with grant writing. She also would like to find a mobile veterinarian to ease the burden of transporting animals to vet clinics.
Karel Minor, president of the Humane League of Lancaster County and the Humane Society of Berks County, runs a similar program, but his distributes most of its food to low-income pet owners through central sites rather than door-to-door delivery.
“It keeps animals out of shelters,” said Minor, who estimates his group doled out eight tons of food in 2013. In order to be enrolled in his group’s program, individuals and families must receive some type of government service and agree to participate in regular vet care, including mandatory spay/neutering.
“Vet care is a way to prevent benign neglect,” said Minor.
On that chilly Saturday morning in January, Miller and Bronco lapped up the attention on Maclay Street—a visit from a television crew, a news photographer and the occasional passerby greeting Bronco by name.
“Everybody knows Bronco,” said Miller, looking down at the wriggling bundle of brown fur at his feet. “He’s the king of the neighborhood.”
Then he paused and turned serious.
“I live alone,” said Miller. “He’s all I’ve got.”
If you’re interested in helping out Animeals, please contact Theresa Fazzolari at tjfazz@comcast.net or 717-571-8883.