After the loss of his job and then his father, Morgan Tepsic found himself in a bit of a bind.
With rising costs, money was tight and his family found themselves struggling to make ends meet. Food for the family’s two dogs was among the expenses.
“Dog food was a big one. The stuff isn’t cheap,” Tepsic said. “I was talking to Grant [Fowler] about it and about how I was struggling. I thought, if I’m struggling, other people have to be struggling as well. So we came up with the idea to offer this free service to people in the city.”
Named for Tepsic’s papillon, Peppy’s Pantry was born. The pantry is designed to help dogs whose people are having a hard time making ends meet.
“Our mission is to not leave any dog hungry,” Tepsic said. “We work on a queue based system and we try to get them in the queue as quickly as we can and feed them as quickly as we can. Every person’s situation is different so we’re not trying to enforce too many stipulations to get food. In the seven months that we’ve been operating, we haven’t really had people ask for food for more than really two to three weeks, so it’s naturally worked out. We make it really easy — people can go to our website and fill out an application and then we connect them with a volunteer to provide free dog food. It doesn’t matter what situation that they’re in. We don’t ask questions. We just want to help.”
Peppy’s Pantry helps people of all different backgrounds and stages of life. While Tepsic and Fowler themselves deliver primarily to housed individuals, they also team up with other grassroots organizations like Bagz of Luv to distribute food to their homeless neighbors as well.
In the year since its inception, Peppy’s Pantry has been able to serve over 500 people, distributing about 15,000 pounds of dog food to people in need. Tepsic and Fowler, both with full-time jobs, spend their free time making deliveries and maintaining the nonprofits’ other needs. The small team relies on the help of generous donations and sources their food through corporate partnerships, going directly to the manufacturers and distributors to make it beneficial for both parties.
“Every operating cost has come out of our own pockets to make this happen,” Tepsic said.
“We like to make our partnerships so there isn’t any loss on their part and also we are saving our donor money for bigger things like expanding our services. If we can not spend money on the food part, that can allow us to basically expand into more animal welfare projects.”
Tepsic and Fowler have big plans for the future of Peppy’s Pantry. The grassroots nonprofit is currently operating out of Tepsic’s garage — the team plans to secure warehouse space to accommodate larger donations and serve more pets.
“Right now we can only accept about 15 to 20 pallets, and that’s helpful but we have bigger plans to help more,” Fowler said. “If we can accommodate larger donations, it really just helps the amount of dogs we can feed. Our long term goal is that we want to set up our own brand of dog food, make it super affordable and very healthy for the animals. We want to partner with vet clinics and offer free spay and neuters, free vaccinations, grooming and nail clipping. We want to help people out in other ways than just food because, a lot of the people we serve, they’re struggling with paying for food, they can’t afford essential services or they keep taking in rescues. I think part of that is education and the other is that they can’t afford it. So we’re there to help the community of dogs. We want to be there for them no matter what they can afford or not.”
The team knows difficult times come and go, but they want to be there to help people when they’re low.
“We truly want to give people a leg up. We’re not trying to feed them for maybe a couple of days. We’re trying to feed them for a while so they don’t need to call us back, so they can have a few paydays come in and actually try to get a leg up on their financial situation.”
Their mission has become one that is dear to their hearts. Both Tepsic and Fowler find great joy in helping people and their pets. The deep bond they have with their own dogs helps them to understand the unique relationship people have with their pets.
“After seeing these people who will feed their dogs before they feed themselves, without them I fear their situation would be much worse,” Tepsic said. “The fact that we can keep these people from giving up their dog — because we know what is most likely going to happen if they have to give them up — the fact that they can keep their best friend really makes it very worth it. It’s so gratifying to see these people have hope again. It’s truly a beautiful thing.”
Visit peppyspantry.com
