Sean Squires heard the bad news that a local pet store, PetCulture, was shutting down this week. He went to the store and bought all of the dog and cat food they had left. He paid about $3,000 for $13,000 worth of food. This included over 570 bags and cans of dog and cat food.
What did he do with his haul? He made a donation to several local shelters. The store’s insurance policy prohibited them from donating the food directly, so Squires took matters into his own hands.
He has nine of his own cats to feed at home, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity at a donation that would help more rescue animals.
The store employees, who are losing their jobs at the end of the day on Sunday, were excited to ring up his transactions. The employee who was working, Erika Penney, had this to say about it:
“Previously, we were hoping we could donate the rest of the food that would be remaining to the shelter, but due to liability issues, the company can’t really allow that, which is understandable, but we were worried we were going to have to throw it out at the end.”
When The Telegram contacted Squires for a comment, he said that he bought the food:
“Because I could, and the animals needed it, basically. I thought it was the normal thing to do.”
Here is the story of how he ended up with nine cats after he emigrated from Qatar:
“I’ve got three cats off the streets from Doha, I brought those over, and there’s another cat that came around when I got back from overseas. I started caring for her, but she showed up with five kittens, so I care for nine now.”
He was actually surprised when the news contacted him about it. He said that he thought it was just “the normal thing to do.”
Here is a YouTuber talking about how to save money to buy donations for animal shelters:
