Jazzy’s Place - Grants
”Bring me your hungry, your poorly nourished, your vulnerable dogs,
seeking to be protected, fed, loved, and to love.
These devoted, affectionate souls in this harsh unforgiving world.
Send them, the unfed, the helpless, the less fortunate, to me”.
Inspired by the Emma Lazarus sonnet on the Statue of Liberty.
[5] The Ronnie Hornigbaum Fund provides grants to municipalities that provide greatly discounted rates for spaying and neutering the exploding population of feral cats. Municipalities can apply by contacting the Ronnie Hornigbaum – Caplan Bensley Foundation at the Orange and Sullivan County Foundation.
When people experience hardships, they are forced to choose between feeding themselves or their pet dog. By giving grants that provide dog food to those truly in need, Jazzy’s Place provides an immediate and lasting solution to households facing this dilemma.
Food bank participants must be a member of the Feeding America program, or a food distribution organization that provides a fully rigorous vetting process throughout their entire hierarchical chain.
The Jazzy’s Place grant program is available to all food banks that have an existing product sourcing structure in place for soliciting donated dog food and does not have an existing financial sponsor or benefactor providing dog food.
These grants will be distributed directly to each participating Food Bank on a continuing annual basis. Funds are to be used by the food banks and qualified food pantries solely to offset the approved shared-maintenance costs for households with dogs. It is not to be applied towards the purchase of dog or human food, but only to donated food obtained through the food bank’s own product sourcing efforts.
The grant must be used for dog food, not cat food. The CBF is concerned that providing similar grants for cat food would invite participants that would feed feral cats. This is a major problem in many areas, as it brings more feral cats into that locality and potentially raises serious local conflicts. The CBF seeks to avoid this sensitive issue and instead can refer inquiries to a separate CBF sponsored grant program that helps solve the feral cat problem facing many communities.[5]
The Jazzy’s Place grant initiative was established in 2013 and is entirely subsidized by David Reid and Maria Bensley Caplan. This program provides free dog food to households in need, so that the beloved pet dog can remain at home, rather than being placed in an animal shelter.
Dog owners approaching animal shelters to abandon their pet dogs due to their inability to feed them will be directed to a nearby Jazzy’s Place food pantry. This will alleviate a sufficient financial burden to hopefully allow these owners to keep their beloved pet dog at home.
The CBF believes that the most efficient and cost-effective distribution channel for families facing difficulties is through the Feeding America program and their network of fully vetted regional food banks and local pantries.
The Jazzy’s Place grant program has been adopted and successfully implemented by food banks across the country. New food banks are being added each year, along with their participating pantries, further expanding our base of dog food recipients.
As the CBF looks to the future, we will be evaluating strategic initiatives to greatly increase the number of food banks participating in the Jazzy’s Place grant program to feed an even greater number of households with pet dogs.
Today a serious limiting factor exists with food banks having space constraints and needing to prioritize human food, especially during times of inflation and food insecurity. The CBF is seeking to support complementary initiatives to provide a wider audience of households in need of human and dog food.
One initiative is to establish a preferred network of suppliers where food banks can purchase short-expiration dog food at drastically reduced prices. This would allow for prompt distribution and free up additional space for human food.
Another approach to addressing the space constraints of many food banks would be to support a mobile delivery and auxiliary storage program to alleviate space constraints and maximize human food distribution like the Colorado Pet Pantry program.
The Colorado Pet Pantry partners with local food banks, pantries, churches, and other nonprofit groups to provide free dog food to individuals and families facing difficulties. All have been vetted, and have had their clients vetted, providing a very efficient distribution process that also reduces administrative costs and channels benefits to those truly in need.
The CBF supports the Colorado Pet Pantry and is seeking to establish similar statewide programs that would greatly expand the dog food distribution network to locations that cannot otherwise provide dog food to those in need.
Jazzy's Place provides grants so that families will no longer have to take food off the table or forced into choosing between feeding themselves or their beloved pet dogs. By giving dog food to those in need, Jazzy’s Place provides an immediate solution to people facing this dilemma and thereby saving the life of the dog.
Individuals and families can now live comfortably together with their canine companion, fulfilling the CBF strategic objective of “Saving both ends of the Leash®”.
Jazzy's PLACE Dog Food Initiative
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