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The Southeast Kansas Humane Society is partnering with Horton’s Pizza Plus in Pittsburg to distribute flyers of adoptable dogs. Three hundred flyers of sponsored dogs at the shelter will be distributed with orders from Horton’s Pizza.
“We’re hoping that by doing this we’re bringing direct information right into the family’s home where potential adopters can see a picture, can see a story, they can make a connection, or they can call and schedule an appointment to see a dog,” said SEK Humane Society director Jasmine Kyle. “We’re just trying everything we can right now to get these guys out.”
The idea for distributing adoption flyers came after seeing a similar fundraiser done in New York, and the SEK Humane Society thought it would be an effective approach here. However, the idea had to be postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“…Then COVID happened and now with fall, we’re finally getting a little bit more into place where we went back to our idea boards and said ‘we should do this with one of our local pizzerias here in town’, so we reached out to Hortons to see if they would be OK and if got like 300 flyers, would they put them on their boxes and help promote and they said ‘absolutely,” Kyle said.
Kyle said the shelter approached Horton’s Pizza to partner with for the project as they believe in working with and supporting local businesses.
“We like to support as many local businesses as we can, because the community does so much for us, so a few months ago we did a Pizza for Pups with Mazzio’s, and we wanted to do another local pizzeria… so we chose Hortons,” Kyle said. “We had so many fans of Hortons, too, so it had to be Hortons next. And we want to make sure to try and work with as many local businesses as possible.”
Adam Holland, Horton’s Pizza manager, said their business also believes in helping local businesses and organizations.
“I mean the more you can give back to the community and businesses, the better off you are and the more impact you make,” Holland said.
Holland said they were willing to partner with the SEK Humane Society as the shelter “has always been a very loyal customer.”
“And we’re all pet lovers at this location, so we saw it as a good way to advertise for them as far as being able to get that out and get those pets adopted,” Holland said.
The dogs advertised are all sponsored, meaning there is no adoption fee. According to Kyle, animals at the shelter are sponsored by a variety of individuals and organizations.
“It goes from members of the public, to companies doing it such as Sunflower Realty, Ryan’s Insurance, Crossing Casino and a few others, some of them are just regular people who just can’t adopt right now… but they still want to help support an animal finding it’s forever home,” Kyle said.
The 300 flyers will promote 10 dogs that are sponsored and ready to be adopted.
“So those 10 dogs all have sponsors and half of them have been in our shelter for a longer period of time and the other half have unique back stories,” Kyle said.
The flyers include the dog’s pictures, a short biography of them, their age range, what kind of homes and environments they are looking for, and how to contact the Humane Society to schedule an appointment with them to see the dog.
Kyle hopes that through the flyers, the dogs will be adopted as they also have 20 other sponsored animals at their shelter.
Holland also hopes Horton’s can play a role in supporting the SEK Humane Society and getting animals adopted.
“Hopefully, we can get some pets adopted out there and ease some of the burden on them as far as their pet population in the Humane Society at the moment, and hopefully impact families that want a pet and realize the Humane Society is a good way to go about adopting one,” Holland said.