We All Love Our Pets (WALOP)

Like their owners, the pets who are cherished by millions of homebound seniors receiving Meals On Wheels services also need nutritious meals to stay healthy. Appreciating how important it is to both provide seniors and their pets with high quality nutritious meals, MOWAA created We All Love Our Pets (WALOP) – a national initiative that seeks to unite Meals On Wheels programs across the country in their efforts to keep seniors and their beloved pets well nourished. While some Meals On Wheels programs have created projects that make it possible for them to make special pet food deliveries to the seniors they serve, most lack the resources needed to integrate this important activity – keeping companion pets, sometimes a homebound senior’s only “family” member, well nourished and healthy – into routine program operations. Until MOWAA established WALOP in 2006, there was no national initiative for focusing attention on the vital relationship that exists between homebound seniors and their pets, or for building the financial resources needed to make pet food deliveries an integral part of the nutritional services local Meals On Wheels programs provide for homebound seniors.