Across the country, factors are compounding to strain our animal sheltering system to the breaking point. Greater Good Charities is working to close this critical infrastructure gap by providing millions of meals yearly for shelter pets and families with animals.
The cost of living is rising, affordable housing is fewer and further between, and federal aid programs like SNAP have been subject to cuts and disruptions. The price of pet care is no exception to these fluctuations—since 2019, the cost of goods like food and treats has surged 22%, according to a Bank of America Institute report, while vet care costs have soared more than 60% since 2014, reports a State of Pet Care Study.
All of this is forcing many pet owners into difficult decisions, be it forgoing recommended treatment for their pets or surrendering them altogether. Animal shelters report elevated surrender rates and a drop in “live outcomes,” meaning adoption or return to owner. Shelter Animals Count recorded an estimated 5.8 million animals filling facilities last year, driven by more pet owners’ simple inability to afford food and basic care.
Shelter staff and volunteers know the ideal place for animals is in a home, and that euthanasia is only the very last resort. But as they struggle to handle the influx of pets, that outcome is becoming more likely. In 2025, approximately 597,000 dogs and cats were euthanized in shelters nationwide.
If nothing is wrong with an animal medically or behaviorally, shelters will do their best to market them, but reducing shelter overpopulation requires support from communities increasingly unable to step up to foster or adopt as their members struggle to meet their own basic needs.
Length of stay for shelter animals is increasing accordingly. A dog or cat who might at one point have stayed at the shelter for a matter of days might now be there for months or even over a year. The overflow of animals and scarcity of willing adopters leaves adoptable pets to languish in the stressful environment of the shelter, which can have mental and physical impacts that decrease their adoptability.
With two decades of logistics experience, Greater Good Charities is working to address this growing crisis. We operate the only national pet food banking system in the U.S., delivering donated product from some of the largest companies in the world to Ambassadors (our qualified distribution partners) across the country.
These Ambassadors then redistribute the product to animal welfare organizations and family support programs like food banks, Veteran Affairs locations, and other qualified agencies in their communities, forming a distribution network that consists of thousands of charitable partners. This highly cost-efficient model means every $1 the program spends delivers more than $60 worth of aid. In 2025 alone, we provided over 70 million meals and over 850,000 pharmaceutical doses to pets in need.
For many families experiencing sudden economic displacement, pets are a primary source of emotional stability and comfort. Individuals often will feed their children and pets before feeding themselves. “What we have seen,” says Eric Pearson, CEO and President of the El Paso Community Foundation, “is people who are desperate. And I think that by being able to support families as a whole, whether the family member has fur or not, I think it's important that we're just trying to take some of the burden, and ease and comfort lives that are in desperate need of ease and comfort.”
Keeping families and their pets together is part of whole-family relief, and a support to our overcrowded animal shelter system.
As need grows, we’re expanding our footprint, especially in underserved and high-need communities. We’re launching new initiatives to deliver direct, tangible relief to Americans experiencing economic hardship.
Your donations support these efforts, keeping food on the tables and in the pet bowls of our neighbors in need. By allowing families to stretch budgets further, feed themselves and their children, and care for their pets, we’re giving them something even more important: a sense of hope and comfort when resources seem few and far between.