Fiona in her Pumpkin Hat
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PetSmart National Adoption Weekend brought in a good crowd to our adoption event Sunday, 9/18, at the PetSmart at 63 Rice Lake Square in Wheaton. It was a busy and productive event. The event started out a bit crazy as several potential adopters arrived early while we still trying to get cats & kittens situated in cages. But once we got all of the everyone settled, we enjoyed a steady stream of visitors and potential adopters.
We had 32 wonderful kittens (Scuba, Scrumptious, Scrabble, Schnapps, Beau, Bernie, Benson, Sonya, Raider, ChaCha, Channing, Grayly, Rider, Rikki, Amber, Blue, Lottie, Patches, Oriole, Tanner, Bali, Moose, Leia, Ponce, Polly, Shula, Buckley, Bubbles, Buttercup, Burt, Marjorie and Amory) and 2 great adults (Mary & Cheyenne) at the event. Everyone handled the experience very well and did a good job of interacting with our guests.
Five adoptions were finalized at the event to pre-approved adopters:
- Bubbles and Buckley went home with a nice couple from Wood Dale, who recently lost and 18 yr old cat.
- Burt went home with a great couple from West Chicago, referred to us by Cheri. They have been working with Feral Fixers to TNR the cats in their neighborhood and have three 1 yr old cats who they rescued from outside, who will companions for Burt.
- Rikki and Rider went home together with a wonderful family from Schaumburg, who have two rescue dogs and a bunny and have had several other rescue cats in the past. We were delighted that the Rikki and Rider could stay together.
We also had five other potential adopters complete applications. I am following up with them in the hopes of finalizing a few more good adoptions as a result of this event.
Fiona, our animatronic cat, was sporting her Pumpkin hat, knitted by Debbie, to celebrate the upcoming season. Auctions of these cat hats will start soon to help fund the spay/neuter surgeries and medical care for the many, many kittens we are encountering. Details to follow on our web site.
Many thanks to the fosters who brought their kitties to the event, specifically Marissa, Jan, Cheri, Catherine, Candy, Diane, Peggy, Karen, Christine, Erika, Tori, Dedra and Laura. Special thanks to Marissa, Jan, Diane, Karen, Candy, Christine, Dedra and Laura who stayed during the event to meet with potential adopters and promote their kitties. Thanks also to Candy for staying to help with the clean-up.
Many thanks to the volunteers who helped with the event - Sara, Debbie, Lauren and Laurel. Everyone did a great job helping with the set-up and clean-up as well as engaging visitors and potential adopters. With 15 cages of cats & kittens, it was quite a production! Sara was a huge help with adoption counseling and completing adoption contracts - couldn't have done it without you! Lauren is our master of cage cards and did a great job of getting all of our many cats & kittens labeled. Debbie entered all of our adoptions into the PetSmart iPad app, which was critical to receiving a special PetSmart grant for National Adoption Weekend. She also handled the transport of Tanner and Buttercup's return to her foster home.
Many thanks to Connie, Candy and Ted for the great publicity and real-time coverage of the event. This was Candy's debut role as our event photographer and live video producer. I hear she did a great job with more to come at future events. Thanks also to Mike for updating our Adoptable Cats & Kittens binder, and to Debbie for updating our poster board.
Our next adoption event will be Saturday, 10/1, at Two Bostons at 2523 W. 75th St. in Naperville, 12noon-3pm. This is an outdoor event, so we will have cages set up in my van, and perhaps a couple of cages outside, depending on the weather.