A 14-year-old Dixieland girl spent her Spring Break working with her family to create a new community pantry for pets, stocked with free animal food and supplies.
“Vivian’s Pets Pantry” is the brainchild of Lakeland High School student Vivian Oquendo, an animal lover who raises chickens and dreams of becoming a veterinarian. The pantry opened on March 13 next to the LKLD Free Fridge at 1319 Hartsell Avenue, across from Lakeland Christian School.
The free fridge and pet pantry are both stocked by donors. Oquendo’s family took over stewardship of the free fridge earlier this year, moving it from its former location at 516 Windsor Street to their property in January and building a wooden enclosure for it.
It was Oquendo’s mother’s idea to move the LKLD Free Fridge to their home. Once they opened it in February, the young teen, who helps her family operate it, made an observation.
“When I first saw the LKLD Free Fridge, I told my mom all these people are suffering and they need free food, but what about their pets?” Oquendo asked.
She said it broke her heart to see so many people getting food out of the free fridge in her yard, but not having any food to feed their pets. The pair realized some people were taking human food and giving it to their animals, which inspired them to create the pantry.
“Ever since I was little, I liked animals. I see animals as equal to me. When I hear people lose their pets, I feel horrible. Seeing animals suffer really hurts my feelings,” Oquendo said.
“I’m very excited that I’m able to help a lot of families that can’t afford to feed their pets,” she said. “The families say they really need it because they have a lot of pets. People come and say they have seven to eight cats that really need it.”
Vivian’s stepfather, George Ruiz, built the pet pantry in one weekend. Inside, Oquendo created colorful graphics to make it easier to decipher the various products available, including cat and dog food, reptile food, hamster food, collars and kitty litter.
Oquendo runs the social media for the endeavor, creating colorful flyers on Canva and posting them to thank donors. When the pantry receives donations, she separates the food into smaller portions so there’s more to go around.
“A lot of people were so excited to see the pet pantry,” Oquendo said. “This lady, she donated these huge bags of pet food, reptile food and hamster food. I thought that was really nice.”
Ruiz said donations vary from people shipping Amazon products to their home, to dropping them off in person.
“I put it this way. There’s been more donations to the pet pantry than the human pantry,” Ruiz said, which has surprised him.
Ruiz said the project has taught him a lot about the benevolence of the community. A man who believes in self reliance, he said he never believed in donating or handouts and always saw the negative side of it, where people take advantage of the situation. That is, until now.
“We get donations all the time. People come with bags of things they bought or they ship from Amazon, so the community has been great for everybody,” Ruiz said. “Somebody goes out there and spends $200-$300 dollars on groceries for people they don’t know, that’s amazing and we get a lot of that.”
Ruiz is the overseer of sorts, with a security camera system, monitoring the activities of the fridge and pantry. He said the homeless often come and take only what they need, but others who have the appearance of being well-off, have surprised him.
“People pull up in a Lexus, clearing out the pantry and (taking) whole bags of apples,” Ruiz said. “We put meat out there… (and they) take all four packs of meat.”
But overall, he said it’s “worked out pretty good,” and they’re happy to serve those in need.
While the free fridge is always in need of donations, Vivian’s Pets Pantry currently needs more cat litter and food for reptiles.
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