Your Support Saves Cats and Kittens!

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$38,318

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Please donate now, you make a difference!

What a year it has been.

Last year at this time, we were anticipating Orange Street Cats’ tenth anniversary year, building on the tremendous successes of 2019, and looking forward to exciting initiatives like our new low-cost spay-neuter program. As you know from your own stories in 2020, these things …. didn’t exactly go as planned. Instead, in March, we canceled in-person adoption events, instituted advanced cleaning protocols aligned with governmental best practices in the event that any of our foster homes became affected by the virus, and our Board of Directors met frequently to keep the organization moving forward in the midst of limited veterinary and spay/neuter resources and changing circumstances.

But they say crisis breeds innovation, and innovate we did! Between March and October, we:

- Piloted a virtual meet-and-greet model for cat introductions, using video chats and phone interviews in place of in-store adoption events;

- Employed a very successful new foster-to-adopt model, giving new cat parents the ability to spend time with a cat, in their own home, before committing to adoption;

- Held events like Trivia for Kitties, Tarot readings, and yoga over Zoom to stay connected to the Orange Street Cats community;

- And despite it all we still found great homes for our cats and kittens!

Here are just two of our rescue stories from 2020: Two young, skinny black and white cats (Dexter and Dahlia) were abandoned in Albany, Dahlia with an open wound. At the emergency vet, we learned that Dahlia was pregnant! Curve balls happen all the time in rescue. Fast forward to a few weeks later, and four healthy little kittens were born! Today she, her brother, and all four kittens are living the good life. Dexter was adopted by a lovely family, and her four kittens are lined up for adoption once they are big enough to be spayed/neutered and are fully vaccinated. Dahlia is recovering from her spay surgery and will be on track to find her forever home in the coming weeks.

It’s a good bet that Timothy and 30+ cats were dumped at a farm. Many of the cats are friendly and crave attention. Timothy came down with an upper respiratory infection that, thankfully, resolved quickly. Some others have had health issues as well and are recovering in our care. Timothy and many others will be ready for a foster-to-adopt home soon. It will take time and a lot of love to get the other cats and kittens socially ready to take that next step, but our volunteers and partners will be giving them the time and attention they need for a chance to live a happy life.

This year, we humbly ask that you please donate if you can, in recognition of the challenging times in our community. Your support will sustain our efforts as we begin a new year, one that we hope will allow us to regain our collective strength as we continue to serve the cats and kittens who need us. Can you help us meet our goal of $30,000? We set big goals because we take on big challenges, and this year was quite a challenge for all of us. As we write this letter, we are taking in a cat found outside with an injured leg that we will try our best to save. And we’re taking on another little fellow who urgently needs PU (perineal urethrostomy) surgery to prevent further urinary obstructions. It’s cases like these that set us apart from other organizations, because we go the extra mile to assist with those cases having the highest need and sometimes the saddest story.

We know this year has been a doozy. We are grateful for you, for your generosity and kindness, and for your dedication to Orange Street Cats during the pandemic. May the new year find you in better times, with reason to believe that better days are always ahead, and with a cat on your lap.