Tnr Sos In Gilbert, Sc!!

[JoyM]

i live in a small rural community in central South Carolina. It has been brought to my attention that there is a woman in our community who just lost her mother and, to make matters worse, she has discovered there are 38 unfixed cats on her mother’s property that her mother had been carrying for. 4 of them are currently pregnant.
We live in Lexington County and our county shelter doesn’t accept cats and they referred her to a “low cost” clinic/ no-kill organization in the neighboring county (Pawmetto Lifeline). This organization said they would accept a few of the cat’s and spay/neuter them all for $1,500. This is far more than she could possibly afford.
She has 10 dogs herself so she is in a desperate situation to say the least. Being an animal lover, she can’t just abandon all these cats but she just doesn’t have the resources to care for them either.
I do not know her personally but a young lady (that is aware that I foster kittens for the neighboring county’s shelter) asked if I knew of any program or organization that could assist. The neighboring county shelter will not accept any animals outside of their county so they cannot help.
Really this is more of a colony situation than personal pets but even from that angle, I don’t know of any TNR programs in our county. If we do have one, I would actually love to start doing TNRs once or twice a month myself.

 

[Jcatbird]

Hey! I lived for awhile in the area around Aiken. North Augusta may have some TNR resources. Have you done a google search of your area?

 

[Jcatbird]

I did a quick search and got a site called “no kill network” There are many services listed there along with a contact name and number. I am not familiar with that network so you would need to ask questions about each group you speak to. Make sure they are no kill and ask about adoption or TNR rules, requirements. I can give you info about some other groups. Best friends.org is good. Alley Cat Allies. The National Spay Alliance May be able to supplement the cost of spays a bit. I think it’s wonderful that you want to help. I wish everyone would. I really think we can find a way for you to help kitties. I am going to try and send you a private message so we can try to find contacts for you and for that young lady. Thank you for being willing to take action!

 

[JoyM]

This is awesome!
I have been emailing various programs, grants and organizations that I have found online all evening. I’m praying one of them can come through for this poor woman.
I don’t know her personally but anyone who is willing to try to take this on even after such a loss is worthy of my respect and help. I don’t have the means to help her financially but if I can find a sponsor to help, I am willing to trap and transport as many as I can to a local vet or shelter. It’s just a matter of getting the traps and cost of the TNR covered.

 

[Jcatbird]

Fantastic! It’s late here now but I’ll be back in touch. I have some other ideas. Keep posting here too and hopefully others will come in with more information. You’re awesome!

 

[Furballsmom]

Hello! Oh, what a situation! My heart goes out to everyone!!

Can you contact pet food companies, tell them of the situation and see if they can help with coupons for food?

Can you try typing the words cat rescue Yourcity yourstate into your search engine.

There is also Nextdoor . com which is a relatively safe neighborhood website that's specific to your area. There may be someone such as a local TrapNeuterRelease organization who may be able to help or give guidance.

In addition, there are these two organizations mentioned by tarasgirl06 which have information beyond vet bills;

There are a lot of links in the animal advocacy media to help with vet bills, and there is also veterinary medical insurance. One great database is www.bestfriends.org/resources. Another is www.alleycat.org, the database of Alley Cat Allies, THE national and increasingly international source for all things "cat". You can also search these topics with your search engine. You'll find a lot of links.

 

[Willowy]

$1500 for 38 cats is actually a really great price (about $40 per cat). It's unlikely she could find one cheaper than that. Maybe she could start a GoFundMe to try to raise the money? That would be ideal, as placing that many unfixed farm cats would be difficult. After they're fixed she could try to place them; it would be a lot easier.

 

[JoyM]

I have been emailing as many organizations, grant sites and programs that I can locate. Since we are a relatively low income and quite rural area, I can understand how much stress she must be under. I would venture to say my family is around middle income for the area and we certainly couldn’t afford it either.
I would be willing to trap and transport them to a local vet or shelter if we can get access to the equipment and get the TNR covered. If she refuses to abandon these animals, I would certainly support her in any way I could. Sadly, so far, I have only found resources in the surrounding counties but none for ours.
I saw that waggle.com is a crowdfunding site dedicated to raising money for animal care so that might be an option but $1,500 is still a hefty amount to raise. I seriously doubt she has any extra income with her already having 10 dogs.
I will continue to search and if anyone else comes across anything else, send it my way. We are in Gilbert, South Carolina in Lexington County. I have already emailed a couple of the resources you listed during my search thus far but I will reach out to the rest today. I just can’t bring myself to say “Sorry and good luck!” I want to believe there HAS to be help out there.

 

[JoyM]

Hello! Oh, what a situation! My heart goes out to everyone!!

Can you contact pet food companies, tell them of the situation and see if they can help with coupons for food?

Can you try typing the words cat rescue Yourcity yourstate into your search engine.

There is also Nextdoor . com which is a relatively safe neighborhood website that's specific to your area. There may be someone such as a local TrapNeuterRelease organization who may be able to help or give guidance.

In addition, there are these two organizations mentioned by tarasgirl06 which have information beyond vet bills;

There are a lot of links in the animal advocacy media to help with vet bills, and there is also veterinary medical insurance. One great database is www.bestfriends.org/resources. Another is www.alleycat.org, the database of Alley Cat Allies, THE national and increasingly international source for all things "cat". You can also search these topics with your search engine. You'll find a lot of links.

I just tried to sign up for next door.com but our community is so rural that I would be the “founding member” so there’s no one else on the site in my area, much less anyone who would know of TNR resources specifically.
I did email alleycat.org to see if they had any information or ideas.

 

[Furballsmom]

I did email alleycat.org to see if they had any information or ideas.

 

[Jcatbird]

Sending your thread out to another who may have information to other sources. I guess you probably won’t hear anything over the weekend but hoping for this week.

 

[tarasgirl06]

i live in a small rural community in central South Carolina. It has been brought to my attention that there is a woman in our community who just lost her mother and, to make matters worse, she has discovered there are 38 unfixed cats on her mother’s property that her mother had been carrying for. 4 of them are currently pregnant.
We live in Lexington County and our county shelter doesn’t accept cats and they referred her to a “low cost” clinic/ no-kill organization in the neighboring county (Pawmetto Lifeline). This organization said they would accept a few of the cat’s and spay/neuter them all for $1,500. This is far more than she could possibly afford.
She has 10 dogs herself so she is in a desperate situation to say the least. Being an animal lover, she can’t just abandon all these cats but she just doesn’t have the resources to care for them either.
I do not know her personally but a young lady (that is aware that I foster kittens for the neighboring county’s shelter) asked if I knew of any program or organization that could assist. The neighboring county shelter will not accept any animals outside of their county so they cannot help.
Really this is more of a colony situation than personal pets but even from that angle, I don’t know of any TNR programs in our county. If we do have one, I would actually love to start doing TNRs once or twice a month myself.

Here are some resources to check:
alleycat.org/GetHelp
bestfriends.org/resources
animalrescuedirectory.net -- you can click on your state and see shelters in your area, and contact them.
Also, many groups have presence online on the major social media i.e. facebook and twitter, etc. You can use the site search engines and input something like "TNR groups in (your area, by various names, county, community, etc.)"

 

[catsknowme]

Have you asked the local veterinarians if you can put flyers up, or, even better, donation cans? In a rural area, fundraising is more challenging because the donor pool is so limited. Maybe you could hold a raffle, if you can get some prizes donated.

 

[Jcatbird]

Thank you tarasgirl06 !
J JoyM There you are! Great resources!

 

[JoyM]

Have you asked the local veterinarians if you can put flyers up, or, even better, donation cans? In a rural area, fundraising is more challenging because the donor pool is so limited. Maybe you could hold a raffle, if you can get some prizes donated.

I haven’t called any veterinarians in the area because they are ridiculously expensive (just getting my 2 cats microchipped and fixed with their yearly vaccinations was $841) and most veterinarians wouldn’t around here wouldn’t have room to do 38 cats even if she could afford it.
We could try donation jars but we are quite rural and not many businesses would allow it (most do not even allow flyers). I’m not trying to be pessimistic. I do believe there has to be a way to get it done. I just haven’t figured it out yet.
A raffle might work if we had something to donate but it would still require a good # of supporters. If she were a member of a larger church, she might be able to sell tickets through them (this is the Bible Belt after all). Maybe even get food donated and sell tickets for a BBQ or spaghetti dinner one weekend if the church would sponsor it.

 

[catsknowme]

Have you contacted FixNation or Best Friends Catnippers yet? You are definitely pursuing this in a concise, organized manner and have good ideas. I once attended a fund-raising BBQ in TN and was surprised at how popular it was. Out here, we are toying with the idea of a poker ride (with motorcycles). Does your area have bluegrass bands so that a pickin' and grinnin' could be sponsored. I find that most rural areas tend to get "donation fatigue" from all the school, church and sports programs relying upon the same small donor pool. Some of the more active Facebook groups have online auctions and raffles. Sorry for rambling - it's almost 2am here; I will keep trying to figure out some options.
As for fundraising, I, myself prefer to donate gifts via PayPal or Chase Quickpay or Zelle or CashApp (i haven't used Venmo yet). GoFundMe asks for a 15% tip so if a person's budget to donate is $20, the charity gets $17 and GFM gets $3; for the charity to receive $20, it costs the donor $23. That $3 might be needed for 5 cans of cat food for the donor's own cat.

 

[Willowy]

Is there a "[town's name] pets" Facebook page? It's very rural here but there are still town Facebook pet pages and I'm surprised by how many people there are who care about the cats. They may know of any available grants, donations, etc.

It's very unusual for a rural vet to be that expensive---have you called every vet in the area? But, again, $40 per cat is probably the cheapest you're going to find.

Will the organization allow her to break them into 2 groups? Have the females done first, and that way there won't be more cats, and then later have the males done? That way she would only have to come up with $750 at a time.

Until then, is there a building on the property that she can confine the females in? It's important that more cats not be born!

 

[tarasgirl06]

Thank you tarasgirl06 !
J JoyM There you are! Great resources!

Only great if they help, Jcatbird and I pray they do. If not, though, keep searching, J JoyM ! Google (or Bing) is your friend! It's more difficult to get help in summertime, which is "kitten season", but don't give up.

 

[JoyM]

As for the crowdfunding, I have found a great one called waggle.org. It’s specifically for pet campaigns and 100% of the profits go straight to the vet/clinic. I have sent that information to her but it will take a little time to get it together. I certainly don’t mind helping her get the word out when she does get the campaign up. They require an invoice from the vet/clinic and lots of information so their writers can create a nice page for her to share. They pay the vet/clinic directly so donors know all the money goes where it’s supposed to and waggle.org posts follow ups on the animals too. I didn’t know about them until I started searching for help for her.
I see signs for fundraising dinners for churches or schools at least once a month. With her being an individual, it will be difficult to get the word out and get enough donors but we could try. The last poker run in the area didn’t do well.
I haven’t tried Fix Nation or Best Friends Catnippers yet but I will try to reach them today. So far I haven’t heard much back from the ones I have contacted unless it was to say they couldn’t help. I’m still hopeful!

 

[Furballsmom]