Craig Street Cats

This year we will, once again, have a booth at the Manitoba Cat Club Cat Show.  The show runs July 3 and 4, 9am to 4pm, at the Holy Cross Gym, 290 Dubuc.  Some of our cats will be there, just to say “hi”, and one of our alumni will be entered in the Houshold Pet category. 

Sketch, now known as Charlemagne, will be shown by Meaghan West, who adopted him last September.  We’re looking forward to seeing Char do well in his class.

Of course, we’ll have a full assortment of goodies for sale (catnip toys, cat beds, hammocks, t-shirts, cards, dish cloths, raffle tickets . . .), as well as a very nice assortment of goodies in a gift basket.  Hope to see you all there!

No, we are not becoming a PBS station. We are having a pledge drive, though.

The cost of running Craig Street Cats has gone from almost nothing to almost $100,000/yr in just 2 years. We are not raising anywhere near that much at our fundraising events. Our regular monthly expenses (vets, food, equipment, supplies, phones, etc.) total almost $5,000. Emergencies and unforeseen events bring the yearly total to almost $100,000. That does not include any salaries — nobody is getting paid to do this.

We currently have monthly pledges totalling $175.00. I sit at information tables 5 or 6 days every month, and raise approximately $750 / month. Donation cans bring in another $40 or $50 / month. We receive an average of $250.00 in one time donations each month. That’s an average of $1,225.00 / month, leaving an average shortfall of $3,775.00 / month. Money raised at our fundraising events, like the Spay-Ghetti Dinner and the rummage sale, goes to cover the accumulated shortfall, instead of being held to cover future expenses and emergencies. This means that we have no funds available during our busiest rescue and TNR season.  Summer is when we most need money, but we have no time to do fundraising events because we are so very busy doing rescue and TNR.

Because of all this, we are having a pledge drive. In order to continue, we must be able to pay our bills. We are asking our supporters to make regular monthly contributions to help us do that. Any amount will help. You can make your pledge through our donation page.  The subscription link will accept amounts from $5.00 on up.  If you would like to make a pledge in an amount not listed, you can download our mail in donation form and send it to us.   If you would prefer to send a series of post dated cheques we will gladly hold each cheque until its proper deposit date.  We can accept email money transfers, as well.  We’ll even answer the phone to take your pledge.  You can call us at 223-6652.

Thank you for your help!

Our first babies of the season are here, and they’re real cuties!  Mewse, Figaro and Oliver were rescued from Airlies St. at the end of May, and will be ready for adoption in a few more weeks.  In the meantime, here they are bouncing around in their playpen:

Of course, we have many other babies available for adoption right now.  Here are some of them playing with one of our volunteers:

Please call us at 223-6652 to arrange an adoption appointment.  You won’t be sorry

Of course we all know that beavers are nature’s engineers.  They build amazing dams that change entire ecosystems.  I’ll bet you didn’t know that Beavers are also great builders.  No, not the critters with the wide, flat tails and big, buck teeth.  The short human variety.

A couple of months ago the First De Graff Beavers took on a huge challenge.  They decided to build 6 feral cat shelters for Craig Street Cats.  With materials donated by Home Depot, these enterprising kids and their leaders spent two weekends putting together shelters that will help to keep many homeless cats warm during coming winters!

Thank you Beavers and Home Depot, Kenaston!

Material Prep

Putting it all together

Line everything up just so

Finishing Touches

More Finishing Touches

and more

more still

The Final Result