6 cattery shelter employees at the no kill shelter where I volunteer need help
14Due to a calicvirus outbreak (started last October) in the cattery where I volunteer, around 120 cats were euthanized today. The only remaining cats are the 4 or 5 who are up front (a different building). It breaks my heart. I have spent, in some cases, years cuddling some of them, working with some of them to make them less shy and thus more adoptable… I have been crying on and off all day.
Unfortunately the 6 cattery employees lost their jobs as a result of this. They won’t be hired back any time soon because the shelter decided to build a new cattery when they can raise the money (the current one is falling down). These employees can’t get food stamps due to the shut down. Unemployment compensation in this state is hundreds of dollars a month below the poverty line even if you get the maximum. They won’t. They were all paid minimum wage or close to that.
As a result I have started a gofundme to try to give them each $500 to cover food for themselves and their pets (they all have animals they have adopted from the shelter). I will make a separate thread about this too. Please pass this on to whomever might help.
gofundme.com/help-cat-shelter-workers-who-lost-their-job
On that page are links to local news stories about this and the shelter’s facebook page.
- 22 comments, 15 replies
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Someone donated. Thank you.
As a side note, just as I did when we raised money so the disabled vet had a graduation gown for his dog, I will post receipts of purchases of the gift cards and if the recipients are willing, post photos of them with their cash card.
@Kidsandliz see your private chat here
Just donated. It must be awful to lose all those cats then your job. I Wish I could have given more.
@squishybrain I appreciate your help. I know those folks will be grateful. I know for sure I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to carry all the cats out nor clean up an empty cattery - cages, dirt boxes, food, cat toys…awful and too sad to even think about how many hours it took just to put them all down, how panicked some of the cats would have been…and then to have to clean the place up through all the tears… makes me grateful I was a volunteer and not there.
@squishybrain PS feel free to post this fund anywhere you want and copy/paste anything I have written in this thread.
This is so heartbreaking.
I tried donating but GoFundMe is giving me a hard time changing my CC info. I’ll try again soon.
@looseneck I know. I am still crying about it and am grateful I wasn’t called to come help. I am not sure I could have handled that, especially after losing Paige in Sept and Max in Dec (two of my cats, liter mates, that were 17.5). I know those folks (and other people who work there) are traumatized.
If you are still having problems their support team is pretty quick to answer.
@Kidsandliz I used another card and it looks like it was accepted!
@looseneck Thank you so much!!!
I’d appreciate it if people would post this other places even if they don’t want to/can’t donate. Thanks.
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I really appreciate people’s donations for these folks. We are up to $348 (well except minus the fees). Every little bit helps.
I gave what I could, and I hope others can too
@moonhat Thanks so much!
I made a donation — I hope it helps.
@TheFLP Thanks so much!
We are up to $620 (before fees) so around $50 for each person. Thanks so much all of you who have donated!!!
For those of you who have donated - and THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH - ($620 so minus fees then divided by 6) I am going to get them to transfer the money and hand out the first round. I am asking them (the cattery people) if I can take a photo of them with the money to put on the gofundme site. If folks could share the url for the gofundme around I’d sure appreciate it.
When I was talking with them this morning letting them know the first round of money was coming this week (I hadn’t told them about the gofundme in case it got nothing, didn’t want to get their hopes up), Linda this morning (the employee who had worked there 8 years, she is having a very, very hard time over the death of all the cats) she was in tears that anyone would help her let alone strangers donating money. Kelly sounded like she was choking back tears. She said, “now I can go grocery shopping and put gas in the car so I can go apply for jobs” - she has no computer or internet at home. They are all extremely grateful and can’t believe that people I only know via the internet would help them. I told them that there were good people on this site for all we give folks a hard time, use the f word, and joke around that there are some really, really good people who hang out there; that they aren’t the first people the folks on here have helped.
Up to $700 as of today. Thank you all!! A bit over $100 each. Spent part of today scavenging for cat food, dog food, rat food and cat litter for these folks. Was not successful as all places in town only give this kind of stuff to charities cleared by their corporate offices. Sigh. Between them they have 14 cats, 4 dogs and a rat.
Monday I was told to talk to the manager at a Petco. An assistant manager said they might try to collect donations of pet food for those folks.
I was out at the shelter yesterday. They have 10 cats total, all now in a windowless room up front. These lucky souls were not in the other building and so were spared. They are getting them all tested (at $168/cat) before they put them up for adoption. I hope to heaven they all come back negative.
I donated.
How very heart-breaking!
Please keep us posted on their progress.
Sending warm thoughts from freezing Michigan.
@punkynpye Thanks!! I withdrew money the other day and will be giving them that today, so yours will be in the next round coming out Feb 4.
What is that virus? I’ve never heard of it but it must have been horrific to put all those cats to sleep. I put my dog down last Monday, after 12 happy years of love and play, and I felt horrible, absolutely devastated that I didnt go through the thousands of dollars of " treatment" for her cancer. So, so sorry to hear this.
@AZnatural1 Don’t feel horrible. I have no idea what I would do if/when this happened to me. 12 years is a good long time to enjoy with your pet, even though we would like them to be with us forever.
My last dog died peacefully in his sleep without us ever knowing there was even anything wrong. We didn’t have an autopsy done as the expense and diagnosis wouldn’t have brought him back.
@AZnatural1 I am sorry you had to put your dog down. I know that guilt for not doing all that can be done is terrible. But you can only afford to do what you can do. There is also guilt with you treat something, it made the animal miserable and then didn’t fix the problem (been there too). You did what you could and your dog was loved.
@AZnatural1 PS the folks who did it (and it took all day) are all traumatized by having to do this.
The money from the first handful of days of donations hit my bank account today. I will be meeting up with folks later today to give them their money. Haven’t been to Petco yet to talk to them about the food situation, but that is on my to do list today as well. For those who have donated. THANK YOU!!
@kidsandliz
Please let them know that at Petsmart, if you go through their bags of dog and cat food and read the “expiration dates”, they should be able to find some amazing deals. When I lived nearer to Petsmart, I regularly bought their better cat foods for 50% or more off because they were either “expired” or within a week or so of expiring.
I put links up on my facebook to try to pull more donations in for them. With those that follow me, you never know, but I’m hoping.
@sarahsandroid Thanks for the suggestion. Petco said they couldn’t donate any food or ask people if they could cuz corporate only does non-profit shelters. I just gave them their first round of money.
@Kidsandliz I had a 14 count cattery and happened to come across the 50% in store price tags by chance. Tell them to go look at the expiration dates on the bags (don’t make a mess) and if they find any expired or set to expire within a week, to ask for a manager and point them out. I told our manager that I had a rescue and fed several feral colonies and could really make use of the food. Especially once they expire, they are never supposed to sell them so the store takes a 100% loss. And technically the could try any retailer about the same issue.
Sarah
@sarahsandroid I will tell them that too. Thanks.
I was handing out money yesterday to the now unemployed cattery workers and they were so grateful that folks they didn’t know would donate to them.
One of them told me this made the difference between eating this week or not since she was nearly out of food and keeping her phone on or not since her phone card was up in 2 days.
One of them even tried to give me gas money from the money I just gave her since I was driving all over town dropping off money and she knew I am living below the poverty line too. Even in their desperate situation they are still thinking of others. I refused it and told her this money was for them, not for me.
THANKS to those of you have donated to these folks. While the amount may be small, it has made a huge difference and brought several of them to tears.
Update - I was in Petsmart asking if they had any expiring or damaged food and was told to come back tomorrow and they’d see what they had. While I was there someone who runs another shelter overheard what I was doing and bought a bunch of bags of cat food!! Out of her own pocket no less. McDades’s grocery store gave me 2 bags of dog food. Hollywood Feed gave some dog treats left over from an event. I struck out at Petco, Walmart, Krogers… Whole foods said they’d get back to me.
Started delivering pet food too. Here are some photos
The cage has a rat in it
food I have collected so far
We are half way to the goal with this fund raiser. Believe it or not GoFundMe just donated $500 to this fund. I had no idea that they did that and no idea how they chose this one to donate to but that was really great that they did!!
We are up to $1,805/3200. Most of that money has been raised from people on here. They (and I) really appreciate people’s generosity.
Also I just found out that PetSmart funneled some money through the woman’s (who bought cat food) shelter’s 503c to buy pet food as well so that was part of that woman’s donation, which I didn’t realize at the time. People’s generosity is really appreciated. You folks have kept these people and their animals in people and pet food. Thank you as this couldn’t be done without your help and spreading of the word.
And a mehrican sent a free bag of dog food coupon in the mail for them in a very cute card (which I will pass on) and dog stickers. THANK YOU!