Get this image on: – Wikimedia Commons

Written by Jannette Renolyds:

ALFS, Animal Larder Food and Shelter, is a free food bank providing food parcels and accessories for families with pets, plus we will help with fostering or rehoming.

The founder of ALFS, Tina, is passionate about animals and their welfare. This is how she came up with the idea for an animal food bank.

Tina said: “One day, walking my old dogs around the cemetery my house backs on to, I saw a Hertford Food Bank Vehicle supplied by Asda. I thought if there is a food bank for people, why not for pets? So Alfsherts was born!”

Alfs is all about helping people that are struggling to feed their pets. The goal is to prevent anyone struggling having to re home their pets, purely because they can’t afford to feed them.

With the current climate, there has been an increased number of people that find themselves financially unstable, having perhaps lost their jobs, being furloughed or through illness.

Giving up pets at this time would be heart breaking, yet another thing that’s lost. Pets are, as we know, part of our family and our support network.

We have offered support to families that have found themselves in dire straits, no money and children to feed, people with mental health issues.

The teacher of some children got in touch with us on their behalf and we gladly helped them.We have had professionals that lost their jobs, life changed on a sixpence, and they were referred to ALFS by a local food bank, as they had a 14 year old Staffordshire Bull Terrier to feed. 

These, and many others we are happy to help, just relieved that the beloved pets are able to stay put.
We have supported a number of cats and their kittens with food and worming up until eight weeks. We will also assist in rehoming with full rescue back up and neutering contracts, if needed.

If we do ever have to re home a pet, it is done only using our wonderful foster homes. We won’t use kennels for any of the animals we help.
The larger we grow, the more food donations we need to keep up with demand. If anyone would like to donate any pet food to help us It would be amazing and greatly appreciated. 

We are also able to accept pet toys, beds, cages, carriers, etc, but we do ask that these be clean and in good condition.  Medivet in Cappell Lane are the local drop off point for donations.  Other drop off points are:

Queens Road in Hertford

Chestnut Vets in Ware

Valley vets in Stevenage

Batchelors in Puckeridge

Lush St Albans

Little Gems Pet Shop in Buntingford

Pet Playground in St Albans

Alternatively, should you wish to make a donation to support our work, this can be done via our paypal account:
https://www.paypal.me/alfsherts
Or you could make a donation via our Amazon wishlist:

Amazon wishlist link
https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/1LFKNMKE3KYTX

We want to reach as many people as we can.

We endeavour to turn no one away, and have offered support to wildlife as well as domestic animals. The larger we grow, the more food donations we will need to keep up with demand. It would be amazing if you were able to help us in these difficult times, in whatever quantity.. It all helps!