This list of one hundred ways to help a cat shelter can be found many places on the internet (mostly oriented toward dog rescue – we’re providing the cat version!) Please take a moment to read through and see if there’s any small way you can help us or another rescue group in your area.
- Transport a cat?
- Donate a cat bed or towels or other *bedding* type items?**
- Donate MONEY?
- Donate a toy mouse? A sparkle ball? A catnip pouch?
- Donate a crate?
- Donate a blanket or baby blankets (good size)?
- Donate a food dish?
- Donate a harness and leash?
- Donate a collar?
- Donate some treats or a bag of food?
- Donate canned food?
- Cuddle a rescue cat for the foster parent?
- Groom a cat?
- Donate some grooming supplies (shampoos, combs, brushes, etc.)?
- Go to the local shelter and watch out for needy cats?
- Make a few phone calls?
- Mail out applications to people who’ve requested them?
- Provide local vet clinics with contact information for educational materials on responsible pet ownership?
- Drive a cat to and from vet appointments?
- Donate long distance calling cards?
- Donate the use of your scanner or digital camera?
- Donate the use of a photocopier?
- Attend public education days and try to educate people on responsible pet ownership?
- Donate a gift certificate to a pet store?
- Donate a raffle item if your club is holding a fund raiser?
- Donate flea stuff (Advantage, etc.)?
- Donate heart worm pills?
- Donate a feline first aid kit?
- Provide a shoulder to cry on when the rescue person is overwhelmed?
- Pay the boarding fees to board a cat for a week? Two weeks?
- Be a Santi-paws foster to give the foster a break for a few hours or days?
- Clip coupons for cat food or treats?
- Make some homemade cat treats?
- Sign up for eScrip.com?
- Host rescue photos with an information link on your website?
- Donate time to take good photos of foster cats for adoption flyers,etc.?
- Conduct a home visit or accompany a rescue person on the home visit?
- Go with rescue person to the vet to help if there is more than one cat?
- Have a yard sale and donate the money to rescue?
- Be volunteer to do rescue in your area?
- Take advantage of a promotion on the web or store offering a free ID tag and instead of getting it for your own pet, have the tag inscribed with your center’s name and phone # to contact?
- Talk to all your friends about adopting and fostering rescue cats?
- Donate vet services or can you help by donating a spay or neuter each year or some vaccinations?
- Interview vets to encourage them to offer discounts to rescues?
- Write a column for your local newspaper or rescue newsletter on cats on cats currently looking for homes or ways to help rescue?
- Take photos of cats available for adoption for use by the Club?
- Maintain web sites listing/showing cats available?
- Help organize and run fundraising events?
- Help maintain the paperwork files associated with each cat or enter the information into a database?
- Hang a poster at the grocery store?
- Microchip a rescued cat?
- Loan your carpet steam cleaner to someone who has fostered a cat that was sick or marked in the house?
- Donate a bottle of bleach or other cleaning products?
- Donate or loan a portable cat playpen to someone who doesn’t have a quarantine area for quarantining a cat that has an unknown vaccination history and has been in a shelter?
- Drive the fosters’ children to an activity so that the foster can take the cat to the vet?
- Use your video camera to film a rescue cat in action?
- Pay the cost of taking a cat to it’s new home?
- Be the one to take cat to its new home?
- Go to the foster home once a week to help socialize a cat?
- Help the foster clean the litter pans?
- Offer to test the foster cat with dogs?
- Pay for the cat to be groomed or take the cat to a *Do It Yourself* Grooming Place?
- Bring the foster take out so the foster doesn’t have to cook dinner?
- Pay a house-cleaning service to do the spring cleaning > for someone who fosters cats all the time?
- Lend your artistic talents to your center’s newsletter, fundraising ideas, t-shirt designs?
- Donate printer paper, envelopes and stamps to your club?
- Go with a rescue person to the vet if a foster cat needs to be euthanized due to incurable health conditions and suffering?
- Go to local shelters and meet with shelter staff about how to identify your breed or provide photos and breed information showing the different types of that breed may come in and the ? different color combinations?
- Go to local businesses and solicit donations for a center’s fundraising >event?
- Offer to try and help owners be better pet owners by holding a grooming seminar?
- Help pet owners be better pet owners by being available to answer training questions?
- Loan a crate if a cat needs to travel by air?
- Put together an *Owner’s Manual* for those who adopt rescued cats of your breed?
- Provide post-adoption follow up or support?
- Donate a coupon for a free car wash or gas or inside cleaning of a vehicle?
- Pay for an ad in your local/metropolitan paper to help place rescue cats?
- Volunteer to screen calls for that ad?
- Get some friends together to build/repair scratching posts for a foster home?
- Microchip your own cats if you are a breeder,and register the chips,so if your cats ever come into rescue, you can be contacted to take responsibility for your cat?
- Donate a small percentage of the sale of each cat to rescue if you are a breeder?
- Buy two of those really neat cat-items you “have to have” and donate one to Rescue?
- Make financial arrangements in your will to cover the cost of caring for your cats after you are gone – so Rescue won’t have to?
- Make a bequest in your will to your local or national Rescue?
- Donate your professional services as an accountant or lawyer?
- Donate other services if you run your own business?
- Donate the use of a vehicle if you own a car dealership?
- Loan your cell phone (and cover costs for any calls) to someone driving a rescued cat?
- Donate your *used* cat litter pan when you get a new one?
- Let rescue know when you’ll be flying and that you’d be willing to be a rescued cat’s escort?
- Donate a carrier seatbelt?
- Donate a scratching post?
- Organize a rescued cat picnic or other event to reunite the other adopters and volunteers?
- Donate other types of cat toys that might be safe for rescued cats?
- Donate a hairball remedy?
- Donate package of brochures on spay/neuter info?
- Donate materials for a quarantine area at a foster’s home?
- Donate sheets of linoleum or other flooring materials to put under crates to protect the foster’s floor?
- Donate an engraving tool to make ID tags for each of the rescued cats?
- Remember that rescuing a cat involves the effort and time of many people and make yourself available on an emergency basis to do *whatever* is needed?
- Do something not listed above to help rescue?