On January 11th, Feral Fixers held its first annual FROSTY CLAWS Open House / Fundraiser in Lombard.  The event was a great success.  Turnout was high, the fundraising was fruitful, the music was topical, the food was great, and a great time was had by all.  We want to thank everyone who attended and everyone who contributed in any way to the success of this event.  Thank you!  Below are some pictures from the event; more pictures are available in our website's Photo Gallery.

	PURRS Naperville donated $1,000 to Feral Fixers to help us in our TNR efforts.  Pictured on the left is Rachel Resk, founder of PURRS Naperville, handing the check to Feral Fixers President Tammy McAuley.  PURRS does wonderful work and we are very grateful for their support and donation - thank you, Rachel!
One of the many things which happened to make our event the success it was, were the efforts of Rita Cervantes and Judy Jarosik.  They sold candy bars (donating the proceeds to Feral Fixers) with some of the bars having prize codes attached to them which could be redeemed for prizes that Rita and Judy also donated.  Thank you, Rita and Judy!
	We raised a lot of money selling cat beds, t-shirts, sweatshirts, cat-toys, etc.  Chris Wallbruch, Secretary of Feral Fixers (and also a long time volunteer at Cat Guardians, another wonderful organization) manned the sales table throughout the entire event.  Thank you, Chris!
Jeanne Kennedy (on the left) and Jennifer Wyrick hosted the sign in table for the entire event.  Thank you, Jeanne and Jennifer!
(pictures of Rita, Judy and Chris taken by Ron Marcell - thank you Ron!)
Feral Fixers would also like to thank those people who donated items to our Silent Auction.  They include: Enerpace Executive and Personal Coaching, Gail Monick of Miscellany by Monick, Darlene Christians, Wildtree Representative - Great Meals in Minutes!, JoEllen Iden, and Kim and Mike Potucek  Thank you !
Finally a huge vote of thanks goes to Regina Dreyer, Feral Fixers Board Member and chief organizer of this event - she did a great job.  Thanks, Regina!

My assignment this month should be to write about our recent Frosty Claws fundraiser – it WAS a fabulous event! But I would like to write about much more, about how connected we all are and how the feral cats are bringing us together.

For example, at Frosty Claws, people who had not seen each other for possibly years were able to reunite and discover what each other had been doing during the time that had passed. They were both in the Rescue world, care very much about animals, but had let this personal relationship slide. We were very happy to offer the space and time that let that relationship continue.

New relationships were formed as people were introduced due to their common interests and backgrounds. So many learned new information about trapping, caring for ferals, and what was happening in cat rescue.

We learned about new colonies that need to be TNR’d, how colonies that we had already taken care of were doing. We learned that caretakers whom we had taught to trap had gone on and taught others.

One attendee, hearing the music we were playing at the event, has now connected us to one of the artists who will be performing at a fundraiser for us this summer. How cool is that!

It isn’t only an event like Frosty Claws that builds our future and the future of TNR in DuPage County.

For the rest of Feral Fixers president Tammy McAuley's thoughts on community, check out our website.

Interested in helping Feral Fixers?  We are looking for a 'few good volunteers'!  Specifically, we're looking for someone to help us transport cats to and from PAWS (the Spay/Neuter clinic we use) in Chicago.  We need transport both in the morning and the afternoon.

If you're interested in helping, call us at (630) 881-FXRS (3977) or
email us at info@feralfixers.org.

Feral Fixers actively solicits donations of cat food and we have been very lucky in our efforts.  For example, from the group ASAP (Animal Services and Assistance Programs Inc., located at 19309 Kishwaukee Valley Road in Marengo, IL, 60152) we were able to get an entire pallet of cat food (several thousand pounds) for only a $20 handling charge.  Thank you, ASAP!  PURRS Naperville recently donated over 120 cases of canned cat food to Feral Fixers.  PAWS Chicago has also donated several cases of food to Feral Fixers and, at our recent Frosty Claws fundraiser, we asked for a $5 donation or some cat food as a donation (and I'm happy to report that we collected many bags/cases of cat food as a result).

What do we do with all of this food?  Some of it is used to feed the cats that we are holding either prior to or immediately after their Spay/Neuter surgery, but much more of it is distributed to those colony caretakers in need of it.  And sometimes this need is great.  A colony behind a nursing home is being cared for by a Feral Fixers volunteer.  This nursing home does not have money to pay for cat food, so our volunteer was paying for this cat food out of her own pocket.  We have been have able to give her several cases of food to help this situation (the full story of this colony can be found on our website).  And, in a more severe case, we have one colony who's caretakers are not well off financially, and, to make matters worse, the husband just lost his job.  They were unable to buy food for the cats and so were reduced to feeding them soup!  Needless to say, they were very happy with the food donation that Feral Fixers was recently able to give them, thanks to the generosity of our friends and donors.

Feral Fixers was founded and incorporated in late September, 2007.  In our first fiscal year (through September, 2008) Feral Fixers had 476 cats spay/neutered.  So far in our second fiscal year, Feral Fixers has had 148 more cats spay/neutered.

We have been hard at work on our website and have added a few new features.  The front page of the website now contains the "From the President" column and "The Feral Blog" column.  "From the President" articles are written monthly by our president, Tammy McAuley, and cover a variety of topics.  Recent articles talk about Feral Health Care and the story of a colony that Feral Fixers is helping through the winter.  "The Feral Blog" is written by Board of Director's member Ted Semon and discusses more "daily" matters such as transporting the cats to/from PAWS, food swaps and other matters he thinks that our readers would be interested in.  We have also now posted archives of all articles and newsletters and a photo gallery, containing photos of events that Feral Fixers has participated in.  Check it out!

Feral Fixers offers its TNR services to all colony caretakers, without charge.  While we ask for donations from colony caretakers, we recognize that for some of them, any additional cost is just too much.  Therefore we rely on donations from other individuals to make up the difference and allow us to continue our work.  These donations allow us to spay/neuter additional cats, keep a 'bank' of traps and trap dividers we loan out for free, hold workshops and provide other educational benefits.  You can help us continue our work by clicking on the Donate button, below.  This will take you to the PayPal website where you can donate to Feral Fixers via PayPal or Credit card.  Feral Fixers is a registered 501c3 charitable organization and any donation is deductible to the fullest amount allowed by law.  Any amount you care to give is gratefully received.

Visit our website at www.feralfixers.org.  There you can donate to us (via PayPal or Credit card), visit our store, read the latest news, and learn more about Feral cats.  If this newsletter has been forwarded to you, you can also sign up to be on our mailing list so you don't miss a thing!