KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Scott Poore dedicates his life to helping homeless pets. In fact, his entire business, Adopt Don't Shop KC, is built around it.
He volunteers at animal shelters nearly every day and he found, "There's one common theme and that's laundry."
Kriste Everett, the Director of Foster Care at Great Plains SPCA agreed, "Laundry is a huge problem and it's every day, all day."
One day, Scott was shopping at IKEA when he saw a display full of bath mats and an idea was born.
"I thought, 'Man these are really affordable. 'They're incredibly comfortable,' Scott said. "Obviously being a bath mat they're going to be absorbent, machine washable and I thought, 'Man, these shelters that aren't using anything at all, what an improvement this would make to the animals lives,' These will replace the sheets, the towels, the blankets that are torn, that are worn out, that, basically, they're only using because it's all they have."
He launched a Go Fund Me with the initial goal of getting mats for every shelter pet in the Kansas City metro. In days, he raised over $7,500 and then IKEA donated $3,000 too.
"Why stop now? This is such an amazing thing. These homeless pets have very little to look forward to and a lot of them come from living on the streets. They deserve comfort. I want to grow this for Kansas, Missouri and maybe beyond," Scott said.
According to Everett, this could cut their laundry time in half, making more time for volunteers to spend with pets.
Scott will pick up the mats as early as next week and deliver them to the local shelters. Now, his goal is to expand the push to every shelter in Kansas and Missouri.
"This isn't about me. This is a team effort," Scott said. "This is Kansas City coming together to help this cause. It may not seem like a lot to some people, but this is everything to these animals."
