A new cat is frequenting your yard, perhaps left behind by indifferent neighbors or maybe the offspring of another feral cat. You begin to put out a little food to help her and she takes shelter below a bush in your back yard. Before you know it, there are kittens. Taking the family to the shelter will mean certain death due to their temperament. You’re willing to provide them a safe haven and food, but you need to end the breeding. Where can you turn to for help? By the spring of 2008, we’d like to say the Alley Cat Guardians Spay/Neuter Facility.
Alley Cat Guardians (ACG), founded as a non-profit in August 2002, is the only organization in Stanislaus County dedicated to assisting feral cats and their caretakers. In this capacity, ACG has operated a monthly, low-cost, free-roaming cat spay/neuter clinic held at local veterinary hospitals for over 4 years. We have assisted hundreds of caretakers fix over 2000 cats, sterilizing 700 cats in 2006 alone. Our current clinic, with an appointment capacity of just 30 cats, fills within a matter of hours. For many clients, waiting one more month to get an appointment means another litter of kittens will be born.
ACG recognizes we need to do more to help the compassionate individuals caring for free-roaming cats and we are ready to tackle the challenge by providing the community increased access to affordable free-roaming cat sterilization. ACG is launching an expansion plan that will initially quadruple our current appointment capacity, significantly increasing both our short-term and long-term impact on cat overpopulation. Our proposal is based on Seattle’s Feral Cat Spay/Neuter Project, a nationally recognized, model feral cat sterilization clinic (www.feralcatproject.org). The proposed ACG Spay/Neuter Facility will begin as a weekly clinic in Year 1 and increase to four clinics per week by Year 4. In Year 1, we seek to achieve the sterilization of at least 200 cats per month and increase public awareness of the importance of spay/neuter to ultimately reduce the number of cats euthanized at the county animal shelter. Every cat fixed through ACG stops the breeding cycle, thus preventing future cats from being impounded at the shelter.
The community’s continued support of ACG is essential to get this facility off the ground and positioned to provide quality, low-cost free-roaming cat spay/neuter services. ACG is pursuing several grants to cover our start-up medical equipment and supply costs. We must have a facility in place in order to be eligible for a grant award. To do this, ACG is turning to the community to help us raise $50,000. Your help is needed now more than ever.
There are several ways you can contribute to this effort. Individual and corporate involvement, from clinic sponsorships to in-kind professional services, will expedite ACG’s implementation of this facility. ACG’s non-profit status and volunteer network keep spay/neuter costs low, thus magnifying the impact of every dollar donated. Your investment in the ACG Spay/Neuter Facility will provide the community access to affordable sterilization services vital to reducing the flow of cats into the county’s animal shelter.
Opening a facility dedicated to free-roaming cat sterilization will encourage individuals to implement Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) throughout the county, while saving taxpayer’s money by reducing the number of feral cats housed and euthanized by Stanislaus County Animal Services. The ACG Spay/Neuter Facility is a compassionate and fiscally responsible program that our community will be proud of supporting.
HOW YOU CAN HELPTo make an online donation or an advanced payment for a scheduled spay/neuter appointment, please click on the link below:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/advanced/default.aspx?wid=18505