Practicing and promoting Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) in DuPage County, Illinois

We're a 501c3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting and practicing Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) in DuPage County, Illinois. We believe that TNR is the only effective, humane and long-term solution to the problem of cat overpopulation.
The Feral Fixers e-Newsletter - Issue # 69 - March, 2019
In This Issue
Fund Our Ferals Future
Letter from the President
Kitten Shower!
How many cats? - 10,974!!
Check out our Social Media!
Want to Help?
Have you seen our Adoptables?
Event Calendar
One step forward, one step back...
Shop on Amazon - Help Feral Fixers!
Shop on CafePress - Help Feral Fixers!
Visit us on the Web
What is Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR)?
About us
Dear Friend,

Welcome to the March, 2019 "almost-Spring" newsletter from Feral Fixers!

We have several fundraisers and events either ongoing or coming up. Details about these are shown as individual articles in the newsletter or in the Calendar of Upcoming Events article.

You can read about two of our cats needing that "perfect" home and some good (and not so good) news about TNR efforts in a couple of locations in Illinois.

There is also a chart showing how many cats (10,974!) Feral fixers has had spayed/neutered since its inception, ways to help us by shopping on Amazon or CafePress and much, much more!
 
Thank you again for caring about the cats.

Sincerely,

Feral Fixers

(Note - you can see a full-size version of most of the picture thumbnails in this newsletter just by clicking on them.)


Letter from the President

March? It sure doesn't seem like March!

While we haven't been trapping, we have still been plenty busy.

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!


How many cats? - 10,974!!


Year
# of cats fixed
2007
86
2008
529
2009
869
2010
1,003
2011
1,025
2012
1,232
2013
1,243
2014
1,291
2015
1,157
2016
1,010
2017
872
2018
654
2019
4
Total
10,974

Clicking on the Calculator will send you to the Feral Fixers 'Statistics' page where you can see our progress, month-by-month, since we've started work.
Check out our Social Media!

Please visit our website at www.feralfixers.org. There you can donate to us (via PayPal or credit card), find out about all the ways you can help Feral Fixers, visit our store, read the latest news, and learn more about feral cats. You can see our list of Adoptable cats, follow the 'running total' of how many cats we've had spayed/neutered, see the current list of Upcoming Events, check out past years Archived articles, read about our Friends and Partners, sign up for our mailing list and much, much more!

We also have very active Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. From these pages, you can get the latest information about what we are doing - often before it shows up on the blog! Links for all of these pages are on our website home page. And don't forget to "Like" us on Facebook and the good karma will surely flow your way- Thank you!
Want to help?

Interested in helping Feral Fixers? We are looking for a 'few good volunteers', specifically, we are looking for volunteers to assist us in the following areas:
  • Transport
  • Feral Cat Care
  • Fostering
We need Transport help and Feral Cat Care help both in the morning and the afternoon. And our need for Fosters is ongoing.

If you're interested in helping us with either Transport or Feral Cat Care, please visit our website and click on the Want to Help? link near the top of the home page. There you'll find some information about both of these volunteer opportunities and, if you're interested, an online questionnaire you can fill out and submit to Feral Fixers.

If you're interested in learning more about Fostering, please visit our website and click on the Want to Foster? link near the top of the home page. There you'll learn more about Fostering and, if the idea appeals to you,you can click on the link to an online questionnaire you can fill out and submit to Feral Fixers.

Thank you for caring about the cats!
Angelo
Have you seen our Adoptables?

While we are a TNR organization, adoptions are part of doing TNR.  We are very thankful to our adopters!  There are times when life changes affect the homes and cats ay be returned to us, thru no fault of the cat.  Often, we learn that these cats need special homes that can modify their expectations and enjoy these wonderful felines on their own terms. 
Bella Luna
Repeatedly, we hear how happy both the cats and adopters are when their new family members settle  in!  They may have spent a long time with us in foster, but waiting for the "right" home is all-important.

Take a look at these two adults, they may be the right addition to YOUR home?

You can see a list of all of our Adoptables by clicking here - thank you for caring about the cats!
Event Calendar

(Note: Please check the Event Calendar on our website for all the latest information about upcoming events.)

March 9, 2019 - Pet Supplies Plus - Feral Fixers will be hosting an adoption event at the Pet Supplies Plus located at 720 E Ogden Ave in Naperville from 11am to 3pm. All of our cats/kittens are in Foster homes, are spayed/neutered, current on their vaccinations, microchipped, dewormed and FeLV/FIV tested. If you would like to get pre-approved for same-day adoption, please email us (by noon Friday, March 8) at gotfriendlies@feralfixers.org. You can see all of our adoptable cats by clicking on the Adoptable Cats link at the top of our website.

March 16, 2019 - El Famous Burrito Fundraiser! Feral Fixers is hosting another fundraising dinner at the El Famous Burrito restaurant located at 256 W Roosevelt Rd in Lombard. Pre-register and then come and eat any time that day (10am to 9pm) and El Famous Burrito will donate 20% of your purchase price to Feral Fixers! We held this event last year and it was very popular! Please preregister for your meal here so we have an idea of how many people are coming and don't forget to mention Feral Fixers when you are seated and paying for your meal. We'll see you there!

March 23, 2019 - PetSmart - Feral Fixers will be hosting an adoption event at the PetSmart located at 63 Rice Lake Square in Wheaton from 11am to 3pm. All of our cats/kittens are in Foster homes, are spayed/neutered, current on their vaccinations, microchipped, dewormed and FeLV/FIV tested. If you would like to get pre-approved for same-day adoption, please email us (by noon Friday, March 22) at gotfriendlies@feralfixers.org. You can see all of our adoptable cats by clicking on the Adoptable Cats link at the top of our website.

April 7, 2019 - Kitten Shower! - Our fourth annual Kitten Shower will be held at the Villa Park VFW (39 E St. Charles Rd in Villa Park) on this date. More details, including a link that lets you purchase discounted "Early Bird" tickets, can be found here - Mark your Calendars!

April 15, 2019 - This is the deadline for sending in photo entries for the 2019-2020 Holiday Card Contest. As many of you know, each year Feral Fixers sends out a Holiday Greeting card to everyone on our current mailing list. Beginning with the 2012 card, the picture on the card was chosen from entries made by you, our friends and supporters. While there is no monetary prize awarded for the winning entry, the winning photographer will be credited on the Holiday card. The picture should definitely say "winter" and "outdoor cat". A shelter would be nice, but is certainly not required. We can accept pictures in nearly any format as long as the resolution is acceptable. The picture should be in "landscape" mode (wider, not taller) as that is format of the Holiday Card cover. Please send your submissions to photocontest@feralfixers.org. Good luck!

April 27, 2019 - The Human Race! - Feral Fixers will be again participating in The Human Race, a DuPage County-wide fundraising event. People who participated last year reported having a great time. 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 hope to see you there!

September 29, 2019 - Barkapalooza! - Feral Fixers will be participating in the West Suburban Humane Society's annual Barkapalooza event. This will be our THIRTEENTH YEAR we have been a part of this happening. More details will be posted when available.
One step forward, one step back...

The Best Friends organization reports on TNR developments in a couple of Illinois locations.

First the good news.

"Things are looking up for cats in Belleville and St. Clair County, and it's time for O'Fallon to follow suit. The St. Clair County Board passed a no kill resolution and a progressive trap-neuter-vaccinate-return program for community cats, as did Belleville. But tragically, O'Fallon officials have refused to do the same to save O'Fallon cats."

And now for the not so good news.

"Administrators at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) recently reversed course on their commitment to trap-neuter-vaccinate-return (TNVR) for managing their campus cats. Instead, the UIS administration has essentially issued a death sentence for cats by prohibiting any future TNVR efforts. What's worse, they have begun trapping and removing cats (and wildlife) on campus."

You can learn more about the Belleville / O'Fallon story here and more about the University of Illinois story here.

Both of these pages also contain "action items" that you can do to help promote TNR in these locations.
Shop on Amazon - Help Feral Fixers!

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!
Shop on CafePress - Help Feral Fixers!

Want to purchase something purr-fect for your cat-lover friends and help out Feral Fixers at the same time?  Just visit our CafePress store and Buy Something! In addition to the Tote Bag (shown at right), we have T-shirts, sweatshirts, aprons, mouse pads, gym bags, messenger bags, coffee mugs, hoodies, pet food bowls, Pajamas and much, much more! A portion of each sale goes to help us in our TNR efforts.

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!
Visit us on the Web 

Visit our website at www.feralfixers.org.  There you can donate to us (via PayPal or credit card), visit our store, read the latest news, and learn more about feral cats.

If this newsletter has been forwarded to you, you can also sign up to be on our mailing list so you don't miss a thing!
What is Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR)?

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.
Feral Fixers, NFP, is a certified 501c3 corporation - EIN Number 13-4364615