BUCKHANNON – The Lewis-Upshur Animal Control Facility has started providing cat and dog food to local Blessing Boxes.
Director of the Lewis-Upshur Animal Control Facility Jan Cochran said LUAC receives donated food that does not match the diet they feed their animals, so they plan to start putting the extra food in local Blessing Boxes.
“We’ll use donated food that comes to us that we don’t use because we keep our dogs and cats on a certain diet here, so a lot of people call us when they’re going to make donations for us and ask what we need and we tell them, but then you have people that just walk in the door and tell us their pet passed away and they have a bag of dog food,” Cochran said. “That is the food we’ll use to fill our bags and place in the Blessing Boxes. “We’ll do gallon-size bags for the dogs, and we’ll do quart-size bags for the cats, and then we’ll label each bag with pictures and put them in the Blessing Boxes.”
Cochran said at the time of writing, they did not have a full list of Blessing Boxes, but they plan to supply the ones they can find.
“I am friends with the director of the facility in Tucker County, and they posted about this on Facebook, and I thought it was a great idea,” Cochran said. “I never considered it before, so when I got back from vacation, I sent [Upshur County Commission President] Kristie Tenney a message, and I asked her what the commission thought, and she thought it was a great idea. She said they thought it was a great idea, so we can start implementing it.”
People interested in donating to LUAC may call 304-472-3865, and their hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. On any holiday the Upshur County Courthouse is closed, the shelter is also closed.