TR Miller Heating, Cooling, Plumbing and Electrical raised over 12,000 pounds of pet food as part of its second annual pet food drive. The company – which has locations in Plainfield, Bolingbrook and New Lenox – will donate the pet food to three animal shelters. Those organizations include A.D.O.P.T. Pet Shelter in Naperville, NAWS Humane Society in Mokena and Wags 2 Wishes Animal Rescue in Plainfield.
TR Miller started doing pet food drives in honor of owners Brian and Jim Sloan’s mother, who passed away from cancer in 2023.
“She was very involved in animal welfare; she volunteered at shelters a lot,” Mark Mullane, marketing manager at TR Miller, said. “Brian shared a lot of stories about going to different places to grab animals from different places where they’re going to be euthanized and bringing them back into local shelters here, where they could get a second chance.”
The rules for this year’s pet food drive followed the same rules as last year’s drive, where the company would raise 10 pounds of pet food for every A/C tuneup. The donation drive lasted between April 15 and July 31 this year.
In the first year of the donation drive, the company was able to raise 11,000 pounds of pet food, all of which went to NAWS in Mokena. With so much food to donate, Mullane said that the company had to help rearrange NAWS’ space to make sure that all the pet food could fit.
“The response we got in the first year, it was just so cool because we know we live in what we call a low interest category when it comes to work,” Mullane said. “People don’t like thinking about their furnace, their AC, so it was actually super fun to be working with things that everyone loves, which is animals.”
The event was so popular that customer service representatives at TR Miller had people calling in to ask if the promotion was happening again, Mullane said. For this year’s drive, the company gave their technicians dog treats to give out when visiting customers’ homes.
Following the first food drive, TR Miller realized that in their second iteration, they could raise enough food to give to multiple local shelters. It also turned into an opportunity to help animal shelters in ways beyond just raising food. For A.D.O.P.T., which had been without hot water for nearly a year, that looked like helping fix the organization’s water heater at no extra cost to the shelter.
“They’ve been amazing partners, and we’re so grateful to them, and their donation means every dog in our care is guaranteed a full belly for months,” Kallie Horner, development coordinator for A.D.O.P.T., said.
The donation also means that A.D.O.P.T. will be able to focus more on helping pet owners in difficult situations, medical care enrichment and finding loving homes for the animals that are already in the shelter’s care, Horner said.
Earlier this year, A.D.O.P.T. started a new arrangement with Will County Animal Protection Services where the shelter is taking in nearly all of Will County’s animals as the county explores the idea of expanding its facilities to humanely house animals.
In July, A.D.O.P.T. was offering 50% off all adoptions in its shelter due to the high influx of pets. Although the shelter did see a high number of adoptions last month, Horner said that A.D.O.P.T. is still at full capacity.
“We’ve just been trying to take in as many animals from Will County as possible,” Horner said, “We did turn our garage into a second intake area, so we’re definitely helping more animals than ever before.”
A.D.O.P.T. is open for adoptions from noon to 7 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Friday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Those who want to help out the shelter but are unable to adopt an animal can also sign up to foster or volunteer with the organization, Horner said.
cstein@chicagotribune.com