And we need YOUR help to do it right. Thanks to our local “humane society” the funds that we were going to use to build our clinic went instead towards keeping our shelter alive during the six weeks that we voluntarily closed to allow their investigation to proceed. Six weeks of paying rent and utilities for our building and retail vet care prices for the lucky cats in foster care who escaped the raid were enough to seriously deplete our finances. Add to that replacing the things that mysteriously vanished while the building was out of our hands and me having to pay a substantial legal bill with money that I wanted to donate to the shelter and you can understand why money is tight, tight, tight around here.
So, you may ask, why start on the clinic project when finances are not exactly optimum? The answer is twofold. The first part is good news – our wonderful carpenter Randy had some time between jobs and offered to come up and do the building. The second part is even better news, we received a $1200.00 grant that was earmarked for our veterinary clinic. So, the timing stinks, but the time is now.
If you’ve ever done a project like this, you know that even with volunteers doing the building materials add up to a lot more than $1200.00. The studs and insulation alone cost over $1500.00. T
hen there is drywall, wiring, windows, doors, primer, paint, countertop and faucets. We have scavenged a lot of the materials we need, but we still have to purchase a lot of building materials. The most important – and expensive – part of this project is the climate control unit. The new clinic is very well insulated, but it did start life as a garage, hot in summer and cold in winter. We have been taking bids for furnaces, and the lowest bid so far comes to $5300.00.
This clinic means a lot to The Cat Ladies Society. With it, we can continue with our primary mission of helping the cats and kittens that need us most, those who come through our doors battered and bruised and sometimes ill. This will insure adequate facilities for our vet tech, vet assistant and visiting veterinarian volunteers to isolate and properly care for cats who just need a little extra help before they are ready to become peoples’ beloved pets.
Please, please help us by donating to this project.
Checks can be mailed to:
The Cat Ladies Society
2217 Mahoning Ave.
Youngstown, Ohio 44509
Or just click on the Donate button in the next column to donate online. Or, better yet, stop by and donate in person. You can tour the shelter, visit (and maybe even adopt!) our wonderful cats and check out the progress of the construction for yourself.
Please help us to keep helping them, and keep improving the ways in which we can help!
