With people out of work, pets are out of food.

“We definitely don’t want you to have to choose between feeding your family and feeding your pet,” Greater Birmingham Humane Society Marketing Director Lindsey Buckner Mays said.

The non-profit organization is seeing the effects of the novel coronavirus in a way many people haven’t thought about: When people are out of work, they might not be able to feed their furry friends. “We’ve had a ton of people who used to be donors, that will say, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m usually donating stuff to you and now I find that I need your help,'” GBHS CEO Allison Black Cornelius said Friday.

The GBHS transformed its Snow Drive adoption facility into a COVID-19 Regional Pet Pantry in early March, providing financially struggling pet owners with food and supplies. While the organization operates a pet pantry program year-round, Cornelius said this is different.

“We got a big truckload and it’s just been going since then,” Cornelius said. “Now we have distributed about 140,000 pounds of dog food and cat food to almost 2,000 people, probably now about 40 rescues in 19 counties, several impoundment facilities in other counties, and it’s been incredible. An incredible response.” Several companies, like greatergood.org and Hill Science Diet, have contributed truckloads of food to the effort, along with people who have sent individual donations.

According to GBHS, many of the COVID-19 Pet Pantry recipients have included restaurant workers, bartenders, retail workers, seniors and others who don’t want to venture in public.

“It’s been kind of incredible. (People getting food are) from all walks of life,” Cornelius said. “We don’t judge- if you need it, you need it.”

Cornelius and Mays said pastors have also showed up to get food for their congregations, and community leaders have come to get food for their neighbors.

The process works like this: Recipients line up on Snow Drive, outside the gates of the facility, before 9 a.m. Then, a GBHS employee gets information from the driver to make sure he or she has filed out the proper paperwork. Once the GBHS employee gets information from the recipient on how many and what kind of animals they have, the recipient drives up the hill to a station where GBHS workers load food into the recipient’s car, without the driver ever leaving the vehicle.

“I call it ‘Chick Fil A style,’” Cornelius said about the process. “They literally just drive through; they don’t have to get out of their cars. And (the workers) just put the dog food in there, and they’re gone.”

When the COVID-19 Regional Pet Pantry opened, Mays said, pet owners showed up by the hundreds, with people coming from as far as Georgia. One day, Mays said, the line of cars stretched from Snow Drive to West Oxmoor Road, hitting Lakeshore Parkway. On a busy day like that, there have been as many as 300 cars in line to receive donations. In all, Mays said about 4,000 pets have been fed through the program.

Adoptable animals have been moved out of the adoption center and into foster homes. Cornelius said anyone who wants to adopt can see the available animals online and fill out an application. GBHS will then contact the interested person and they will be connected with the animal’s foster parent to meet the pet. Cornelius said the process has been surprisingly smooth. “The silver lining of this pandemic may be, there’s a different way to do it," she said about adoptions.

People needing supplies can visit the Pet Pantry at 300 Snow Drive from Wednesday through Friday, beginning at 9 a.m. and ending at 1 p.m. Fill out the application online to receive aid, or do it when you arrive at the facility. Find information on how to have donations shipped through online retailers on the GBHS website here, or drop off donations Monday through Friday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.