Her sentences arrived together like poetry. It wasn’t intentional. It was just the way she spoke. A woman with many years who remembered a time before texting and tweeting. A time when words were investments. Spoken carefully. Irreplaceable. And she did it beautifully.

Describing the son she had lost years before that still leaves an open hole in her heart. That’s what she said. It was only when I asked a question that I learned the truth.

The son she missed had four legs, not two. And there was never another. Until now.

A friend had passed away. “They all seem to do that, you know?” she said. But this one left behind her son, her dog. And that dog had no one. And that’s why she said she needed to be there for him. But like many of her generation, the money did not meet the need. And the daily cost of caring for her new friend was often beyond her means. And that’s why she turned to The Pongo Fund for help.

But then she needed to move and her new home was not conveniently located for her to get to Pongo. So we went to her. But where she lived, she told us, there were many more just like her that struggled to keep their pets fed.

What about them?

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

So we started with one building housing dozens more like her, delivering to them food and hope regularly. One of our Pongo managers now oversees those deliveries. The amounts change. The delivery days change. But what doesn’t change is that we are there for them when they need us most.

But there were more buildings just like this one throughout the city. Providing stable housing for those that would be homeless otherwise. Hundreds of people with hundreds of pets.

People that face a myriad of physical, financial, mental and emotional struggles daily. Senior citizens. Veterans. Victims of domestic violence. And so much more.

Their pets their only stability. Loved with all the love possible. And they needed help. So we worked to find the way to help these people with their pets that no one else helped.

Despite The Pongo Fund being a tiny tot of an organization we leaped. Because, as the saying goes, leap and the net will appear.

As November kicks off The Pongo Fund has begun the program to reach these wonderful people and pets that had gone unreached before. If they could not get to us we would get to them. We have not named the program yet, but we will.

Because doing it is more important than naming it.

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” – Leo Buscaglia.

Delivering food and hope to the doorways of our most fragile families. Keeping so many beloved animals safe at home and out of the shelters. Keeping so many families together.

Feeding stomachs and souls like never before. Helping our neighbors. It’s a good feeling.

“It is not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving.” – Mother Teresa

Sit. Stay. Eat. Live. Together We Pongo. thepongofund.org

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