request<\/a> for donations had been answered in the form of multiple Amazon packages with ACS\u2019s preferred dog food brands, and supplies donated by its own staff members. Instead of just a few days, it now has about two or three weeks-worth of food. <\/p>\n\u201cAny time that it involves resources for the community, we get a really good response,\u201d said ACS Community Engagement Officer Paul Trujillo as he broke down the shipped boxes Monday.<\/p>\n
ACS\u2019s pet pantry isn\u2019t in the department\u2019s budget, Trujillo said; it\u2019s made up entirely of donated items and can help people in emergency situation feed their pets when they just can\u2019t cover the cost of food.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can prevent a pet coming into the shelter and support the family for a week or two until they get back on their feet, that is definitely something that we\u2019re wanting to do,\u201d Trujillo said.<\/p>\n
The pantry helps about 10 to 15 people per week, he said, and is also used for community and homeless outreach efforts. <\/p>\n
The pantry was depleted after a particularly busy two-week period, Trujillo said. But he and ACS Community Relations Manager Liz Martinez say they\u2019ve also generally been seeing fewer donations, but more need. <\/p>\n
Martinez said they\u2019ve been seeing the drop in donations especially during the summer. While they don\u2019t know for sure why that is, Martinez said they suspect it\u2019s a mixture of financial pressures like back-to-school shopping, higher power bills, and having kids at home instead of at school.<\/p>\n
ACS recently began working with a nonprofit, Daisy Cares, which has helped bring in more pet food for the pantry. But that group, which collects donations and partners with the San Antonio Food Bank, says it\u2019s also seeing less food coming in while also seeing more people needing their help. <\/p>\n
At the San Antonio Food Bank, President and CEO Eric Cooper said most of the pet food it gets comes from pet food manufacturers and the retailers who sell it, rather than individual donations from residents. <\/p>\n
They see \u201cups and downs\u201d in the amount of donations, he said. But while he thinks \u201cthis year over last year might be down a little bit,\u201d Cooper said it would take time to monitor as a trend.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no doubt of the need, though. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need pet food,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cThe supply doesn\u2019t meet the demand. We could use more pet food to meet the demand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martinez said ACS hopes with the help it gets from community partners like Daisy Cares it won\u2019t need to put out calls for action like it did last week but that people also realize ACS is always open for donations. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnything helps,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
ACS lists its preferred supplies on an Amazon wish list<\/a>, and donations can be dropped off during regular business hours, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.<\/p>\nRead also:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 With just a few plastic bags of pet food on its pet pantry shelves last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31199,244,245,82,8332,84,83],"class_list":["post-444068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-acs","tag-animals","tag-pets","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-food-bank","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}