Frosty Claws was great! We had 186 people in attendance, would have been more except for the heavy snowfall the day before. Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time, socializing and enjoying the raffles and food. Many thanks to our donors and to our volunteers who make things run so smoothly!

When Are We Going To Get A Building?

We're in the middle of our "Fund Our Ferals Future" fundraiser. Our goal is to match $12,500 - an aggressive goal, to be sure. In addition to the $2,566 in donations that have been sent thru the Giving Grid, we have received another $3,300, bringing us close to the halfway point - $5,866. This fundraiser ends on March 16th, so we only have a short time to raise the additional funds! Our El Famous fundraiser on March 16th will raise donations for this too! 20% of your restaurant bill will be donated!

We are still looking for the right location. We are a small group of people that already were overburdened with the rest of our Feral Fixers' responsibilities. We have found several locations that we were willing to explore but encountered zoning issues with the village or problems with the building. As we continue to search we learn more about what we really need, what we can do, so the time is not wasted. The money donated is held separate from operating funds for Feral Fixers. The more those funds continue to grow, the more quickly we will be able to react when we find that ideal place. I asked the director of an area rescue about the planning of their new building. 25 years ago, they received a bequest of a building and started thinking about expansion then. About 15 years ago they bought the house next door and then about 5 years ago they bought an additional house next to that. They now are finalizing the building design plans for the new construction, this step alone take an incredible amount of time, the actual construction and move in will take time, so they may be, what? 2 - 3 years out? Still.

In order to move forward we also need specific volunteers. Feral Cat Care - to help with the cats before and after surgery - feeding, changing the newspaper in their traps, noting any health issues, sweeping the floor! You have to be calm, low-voiced, not easily rattled and totally dependable - there may be no one else available to do those duties that day. We will need at least one volunteer to help with the duties of caring for a building - there's a lot of care that is needed with a building - exterior and interior - changing light bulbs for instance! We can't just move in and expect to add additional duties to the volunteers we currently have, we need to develop people in advance. Training people in how to care for cats in my garage can begin as soon as we start trapping again.

In addition to some wonderful monetary donations, we have pledges for retrofitting plumbing if we need it, legal help, washing machine, plus! Just takes that all-important RIGHT place to be found.

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

Hopefully many of you are done with taxes for the year and have a good outcome! One way to increase deductions is to make Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs). Individuals can donate directly from a traditional or Roth IRA to qualifying charities. To shorten the explanation, your yearly required minimum distribution from an IRA can be donated directly to a charity without including the distribution in income, hopefully reducing taxes. Here's a link for information - not an endorsement! And here's a link to the IRS regarding donations.

Kitten Shower

Hopefully a lot of you have received your Kitten Shower invite! We will be working feverishly to get that ready - April 7th is just a month away! If you would like to donate to our Silent Auction, please contact me at tnr.tammy@yahoo.com or call 630-881-3977. Deadline for donations is 3/31 to have hope of making it into the event - remember, new, hand-made, vintage - something your sister would welcome as a gift! If you would like to bake, and participate in the food side of things, please contact Sue Zorn 630-661-8509. Register thru PayPal or mail by 4/2. Looking forward to seeing you all there!

DuPage Human Race

The DuPage Human Race will take place on Saturday, April 27th 9AM. There are so many participants, be sure to get there early. Receipt of a race logo shirt is guaranteed for first 1,700 registrants, registration fee is $40 for runners, $35 for walkers up until March 31st when the fee goes up. Our goal is to raise $600. Please click on the links to register or to donate on behalf of your favorite runner! There are several ways you can participate and help Feral Fixers. You can sign up to be a runner by clicking here. Or, you can directly donate by clicking here. Or you can set up your own associated fundraiser by clicking here. More information about the race itself and all the associated activities can be found here. We had a great group of participants last year!

Amazon Smile

One of the ways to support Feral Fixers is to make Amazon Smile purchases. .5% seems a tiny amount but when combined with hundreds of other purchases it can really mount up. Our latest quarterly distribution was for $236.99! Since we became a designated charity we have received a total of over $2,000 with 207 people making purchases. Our very first disbursement check in August of 2014 was for less than $50. We have had 500% growth! Make sure you pick Feral Fixers as your designated charity before you make any purchases.

Happy Birthday!

If you are a Facebook person, not everyone is :), there is a new way to raise funds for Feral Fixers - Birthday fundraisers! Set a goal and ask for donations around your birthday - one way to do good, limit possessions and make your friends and family feel good too! Check out our Facebook before another year passes by!

Spay/Neuters Since December

We really had to call a complete halt to TNR since November. We've done 2 friendlies in January and one friendly in February, which brings us to 3 for 2019 and 10,974 since our beginning. Our first TNR trip is in March for some ferals in garages - they will be able to return to the garages after surgery so will not have health consequences - it is still FREEZING out there! We will have no choice but to get back to speed soon after that. We ask for your help so that we do the majority of our TNR towards the beginning of the year so that we are not so exhausted in the Fall! This next trip will include our 11,000th cat!!! Yee-ha!

Amazon.com, the website which offers a gazillions items sale, now makes it very easy to help Feral Fixers in a couple of different ways:

 

Feral Fixers is a designated charity on Amazon.com and, if you designate Feral Fixers as your "Favorite Charity" and you then purchase any of the items that are designated eligible for the "Amazon-smile" charity program (which seems to be most of them), Amazon will automatically donate 1/2% of the purchase price of these eligible items to Feral Fixers.

To donate this way, sign on to smile.amazon.com (instead of amazon.com).  You'll then be able to designate a "Favorite charity".  Enter "Feral Fixers NFP" where asked to and then Feral Fixers will be eligible for these donations. You only have to designate this one time and then Amazon will automatically remember this for all future purchases on the smile.amazon.com website.

When you use the smile.amazon.com website, you'll see that it looks and acts just like the same Amazon.com website you've always enjoyed - all of the products are still listed, but note that not every item on Amazon is "AmazonSmile" eligible.  Items that are eligible are clearly designated as such in the description.

 

You can also purchase items for Feral Fixers from our Amazon Wish list!

 

This is a wonderful way to help Feral Fixers.  Many people prefer to support a charitable organization by purchasing items for them rather than sending them a donation and this is a way you can do so and, best of all, the items are shipped directly to us - no muss, no fuss!

To find the Feral Fixers Wish List on Amazon.com, first visit their website and sign in. Point your mouse at the "Account & Lists" tab near the top, right-hand portion of the screen and a drop-down menu will be displayed. Scroll down to the "Find a List or Registry" option and click on it. Enter the words "Feral Fixers" (without the quotation marks) into the box that says "Find Someone's Wish List" and hit Enter. You'll then be presented with all of the items on Amazon.com that Feral Fixers would like to have. Add the item(s) you wish to donate to your Shopping Cart in the normal manner and, when you pay for them, they'll be ordered and shipped directly to Feral Fixers!

And, you can increase your Amazon donation impact by designating Feral Fixers as your supported charity on Amazon.com. Once you do so, Amazon will automatically donate 1/2% of the purchase price of any item you purchase via the smile.amazon.com website to Feral Fixers. To take advantage of this, however, you must sign into the http://smile.amazon.com version of the website. This website looks almost exactly like the amazon.com website that you know and the shopping experience is the same. All of the products are still listed, but note that not every item on Amazon is "amazonsmile" eligible. Items that are eligible are clearly designated as such in the description.

So, register Feral Fixers as your favorite charity, purchase one or more items from our Wish List while shopping at smile.amazon.com and help us help the cats in two ways!

Thank you!

To visit the store, just click on the picture of the Tote Bag or visit our website and click on the ' CafePress' button at the top - Thank you!

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TNR is a full management plan in which stray and feral cats already living outdoors in cities, towns, and rural areas are humanely trapped, evaluated, vaccinated, and sterilized by veterinarians.

When space is available, adoptable cats and kittens are transferred to sheltering organizations to be adopted into good homes. Healthy adult cats unsocialized to humans are returned to their familiar habitat under the lifelong care of their original caretakers.