As the weather is cooling down and folks are settling into their fall routines, we are hoping to see families have increased focus on adding new kitty family members. Adoptions were a bit slower in September than August with a total of 28, including 27 wonderful kittens and 1 adult (Bobbi). Things seem to be ramping up in early October, however, as we have completed 20 adoptions so far, including 17 adorable kittens and 3 adults (Portia, Sully, Yasmin). We hope this trend continues!
It is especially rewarding to see our mama and papa cats get adopted. Bobbie, Portia and Yasmin were all nursing mama cats and Sully was a papa cat to the kittens we rescued from that location.
We held 2 adoption events at our building in September (9/10 & 9/24) and have held one in October so far (10/8). The events in September were rather quiet, with only 3 adoptions occurring at these events. But things ramped up at the 10/8 event, where we completed 8 adoptions! Many other adoptions also occurred as a result of the guests who attended these events and the promotions before and after these events.
Many thanks to the fosters who participated in these events and/or enabled the 28 adoptions in September and 20 adoptions in October so far - Agnes, Ashley, Bonnie, Catherine, Chrystie, Dawn, De, Denise, Diana, Diane, Jason & Vicki, Jill, John, Lynne, Marge & Ray, Mirian, Olivia, Rachel & Sephie, Sarah, Stephanie, Ted.
Thanks also to the volunteers who made these adoption events a success - Aaron for help with building setup on Friday night; Sara, Steve, Laura B and Olivia for handling set-up and clean up on Saturday; Sara, Olivia, Laura B and Trista for help with adoption counseling and interacting with our guests; Steve, Vicki and Shannon for staffing the front desk and greeting our guests; Steve for creating our excellent cage cards; Sara and Olivia for photography and Facebook posting; Connie and Ted for the great job promoting our events. Special thanks to Sephie for the handouts and educational children's books she has provided for adopters as part of her Girl Scout Gold Award Project.
We still have lots of work ahead as we have >100 kittens and 27 friendly adult cats in our care who need to be placed in loving forever homes. There are also likely many more kittens and friendly adult cats who will enter our doors before we close down rescue operations for the season.
Our foster homes are full and many of our fosters need a break after a busy spring kitten season. So we continue to work to grow our base of fosters. We appreciate all of your help with fostering and finding fosters to enable us to rescue as many adoptable cats & kittens as possible before winter sets in.
To supplement our capacity beyond our foster homes, we have been housing more adoptable cats & kittens in our building. Our Cats in Transition (CiT) room is always full with an ever-changing assortment of recently rescued kittens awaiting foster care. In addition, those cats & kittens we rescue, who are very friendly and immediately adoptable upon recovery from spay/neuter, have been staying in our building until adoption. Sadly, we have also had a few adult cat returns and those cats have been resident in the building until they are adopted, or foster space becomes available.
At one point, we were up to 28 friendly cats & kittens resident in our building. Thanks to the outstanding coordination efforts of Trista, Laura B and Olivia and the entire CiT volunteer team, all of our in-house cats & kittens have received excellent care and socialization. The dedication of our volunteers to staffing the 14 morning and evening shifts in our building is critical to our success.
We have one more adoption event scheduled for October at our building - Saturday, 10/22, 11am-3pm.
The following adoption event will be at the PetSmart in Downers Grove very close to our building (1550 Butterfield Rd, Finley Square Shopping Center) - Saturday, 11/12, 11am-3pm. This is part of PetSmart National Adoption Week.
Please mark your calendars and help us find homes for all of our wonderful cats & kittens.
Thanks,
Sue