BRANDON, Fla. — Local businesses are participating in a program to help put a spotlight on shelter animals needing a new home.
Lauri Partanio started "Pizza for Pets" about six months ago. She gave pizza shops a handful of flyers featuring shelter animals. Each flyer has the face of a dog or cat from the Pet Resource Center in Tampa. The flyers are placed on pizza boxes.
Her idea expanded and numerous restaurants are now participating in the program.
"We partner with small businesses in East and South Hillsborough County, so they sign up to be our partner with us and what we do is we print flyers for them with their business name, our business, a picture of the pet that needs to be adopted, their animal ID number, all the information for Pet Resource center over on Falkenburg Road," said Partanio.
Partanio once worked for Hillsborough Animal Control. She now owns a business called Professional Pets Florida and wants to find a way to help animals.
"It's been mind-blowing. I really hoped to get one or two dogs or cats adopted from this process and we've had 37 so far since February '23," said Partanio.
Danielle Stevens, owner of Vine Vegan, is participating in the program. Stevens created a wall in her restaurant, highlighting the animals that found a new home through the program.
"We're really proud of our wall. Our wall is our little claim to fame on all of the dogs that we helped personally get adopted through this program," said Stevens.
Stevens places the flyers on takeout orders.
"We put our flyers in the to-go bags when I heard about Lauri's project. I called her up and I said I don't have pizza boxes, but I do send out 1,000 to-go bags a month so I could put them inside the bag, staple them in the side," said Stevens.
Here is a complete list of the restaurants participating in the program:
- PizzaVola Express – Riverview, Florida
- Frankie’s Italian Deli – Riverview, Florida
- Nick’s Pizzaria & Wings – Plant City, Florida
- Bloomingdale Pizza – Brandon, Florida
- Fishhawk Pizza – Lithia, Florida
- Justin’s Pizza – Riverview, Florida
- Salty Shamrock Irish Pub – Apollo Beach, Florida
- The Healthy Spot – Apollo Beach, Florida
- Vine Vegan – Brandon, Florida
- Vegan International Co. – Tampa, Florida
Partanio said her company offers a 20% discount for life on services for the adopters of any of our Pizza for Pets features.
She added adoption fees are waived at the Pet Resource Center for anyone who brings one of their flyers to the shelter and adopts an animal.
