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Practicing and promoting
Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) in DuPage County, Illinois |
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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. |
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The Feral Fixers e-Newsletter - Issue #05 -
February, 2009 |
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FROSTY CLAWS
Open House a huge success!!
On January 11th, Feral Fixers held its
first annual
FROSTY CLAWS
Open House / Fundraiser in Lombard. The event was a great
success. Turnout was high, the fundraising was fruitful, the
music was topical, the food was great, and a great time was had by
all. We want to thank everyone who attended and everyone who
contributed in any way to the success of this event. Thank
you! Below are some pictures from the event; more pictures are
available in our website's
Photo Gallery.
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PURRS Naperville
donated $1,000 to Feral Fixers to help us in our TNR efforts.
Pictured on the left is Rachel Resk, founder of PURRS
Naperville, handing the check to Feral Fixers President Tammy
McAuley. PURRS does wonderful work and we are very
grateful for their support and donation - thank you, Rachel! |
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One
of the many things which happened to make our event the success
it was, were the efforts of Rita Cervantes and Judy Jarosik.
They sold candy bars (donating the proceeds to Feral Fixers)
with some of the bars having prize codes attached to them which
could be redeemed for prizes that Rita and Judy also donated.
Thank you, Rita and Judy! |
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We
raised a lot of money selling cat beds, t-shirts, sweatshirts,
cat-toys, etc. Chris Wallbruch, Secretary of Feral Fixers
(and also a long time volunteer at
Cat Guardians, another
wonderful organization) manned the sales table throughout the
entire event. Thank you, Chris! |
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Jeanne Kennedy (on the left) and Jennifer Wyrick hosted the sign in table for the
entire event. Thank you, Jeanne and Jennifer! |
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(pictures of
Rita, Judy and Chris taken by Ron Marcell - thank you Ron!) |
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Feral Fixers would also like to
thank those people who donated items to our Silent Auction.
They include: Enerpace Executive and Personal Coaching, Gail
Monick of Miscellany by Monick, Darlene Christians, Wildtree
Representative - Great Meals in Minutes!, JoEllen Iden, and Kim
and Mike Potucek Thank you ! |
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Finally a huge vote of thanks goes
to Regina Dreyer, Feral Fixers Board Member and chief organizer
of this event - she did a great job. Thanks, Regina! |
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Everything is
connected My assignment
this month should be to write about our recent Frosty Claws
fundraiser – it WAS a fabulous event! But I would like to write
about much more, about how connected we all are and how the feral
cats are bringing us together.
For example, at Frosty Claws, people who had not seen each other for
possibly years were able to reunite and discover what each other had
been doing during the time that had passed. They were both in the
Rescue world, care very much about animals, but had let this
personal relationship slide. We were very happy to offer the space
and time that let that relationship continue.
New relationships were formed as people were introduced due to their
common interests and backgrounds. So many learned new information
about trapping, caring for ferals, and what was happening in cat
rescue.
We learned about new colonies that need to be TNR’d, how colonies
that we had already taken care of were doing. We learned that
caretakers whom we had taught to trap had gone on and taught others.
One attendee, hearing the music we were playing at the event, has
now connected us to one of the artists who will be performing at a
fundraiser for us this summer. How cool is that!
It isn’t only an event like Frosty Claws that builds our future and
the future of TNR in DuPage County.
For
the rest of Feral Fixers president Tammy McAuley's thoughts on
community, check
out our website. |
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Want to help?
Interested in helping Feral Fixers? We are looking for a 'few good
volunteers'! Specifically, we're looking for someone to help us
transport cats to and from PAWS (the Spay/Neuter clinic we use) in
Chicago. We need transport both in the morning and the afternoon.
If you're interested in helping, call us at (630) 881-FXRS (3977) or
email us at info@feralfixers.org. |
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Food Donations
Feral Fixers actively solicits donations
of cat food and we have been very lucky in our efforts. For
example, from the group ASAP (Animal Services and Assistance
Programs Inc., located at 19309 Kishwaukee Valley Road in Marengo,
IL, 60152) we were able to get an entire pallet of cat food (several
thousand pounds) for only a $20 handling charge. Thank you,
ASAP! PURRS Naperville recently donated over 120 cases of
canned cat food to Feral Fixers.
PAWS Chicago has also donated
several cases of food to Feral Fixers and, at our recent Frosty
Claws fundraiser, we asked for a $5 donation or some cat food as a
donation (and I'm happy to report that we collected many bags/cases
of cat food as a result).
What do we do with all of this food?
Some of it is used to feed the cats that we are holding either prior
to or immediately after their Spay/Neuter surgery, but much more of
it is distributed to those colony caretakers in need of it.
And sometimes this need is great. A colony behind a nursing
home is being cared for by a Feral Fixers volunteer. This
nursing home does not have money to pay for cat food, so our
volunteer was paying for this cat food out of her own pocket.
We have been have able to give her several cases of food to help
this situation (the full story of this colony can be found on our
website). And, in a more severe case, we have one colony
who's caretakers are not well off financially, and, to make matters
worse, the husband just lost his job. They were unable to buy
food for the cats and so were reduced to feeding them soup!
Needless to say, they were very happy with the food donation that
Feral Fixers was recently able to give them, thanks to the
generosity of our friends and donors. |
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How many cats?
624 !!
Feral Fixers was founded and incorporated in late September, 2007.
In our first fiscal year (through September, 2008) Feral Fixers had
476 cats spay/neutered. So far in our second fiscal year,
Feral Fixers has had 148 more cats spay/neutered. |
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Check out our
updated website! We have
been hard at work on our website and have added a few new features.
The front page of the website now contains the "From the
President" column and "The Feral Blog" column. "From
the President" articles are written monthly by our president,
Tammy McAuley, and cover a variety of topics. Recent articles
talk about Feral Health Care and the story of a colony that Feral
Fixers is helping through the winter. "The Feral Blog"
is written by Board of Director's member Ted Semon and discusses more
"daily" matters such as transporting the cats to/from PAWS, food
swaps and other matters he thinks that our readers would be
interested in. We have also now posted archives of all
articles and newsletters and a photo gallery, containing photos of
events that Feral Fixers has participated in. Check it out! |
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Donate to
Feral Fixers Feral Fixers
offers its TNR services to all colony caretakers, without charge.
While we ask for donations from colony caretakers, we recognize that
for some of them, any additional cost is just too much.
Therefore we rely on donations from other individuals to make up the
difference and allow us to continue our work. These donations
allow us to spay/neuter additional cats, keep a 'bank' of traps and
trap dividers we loan out for free, hold workshops and provide other
educational benefits. You can help us continue our work by
clicking on the Donate button, below. This will take you to
the PayPal website where you can donate to Feral Fixers via PayPal
or Credit card. Feral Fixers is a registered 501c3 charitable
organization and any donation is deductible to the fullest amount
allowed by law. Any amount you care to give is gratefully received.
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Shop for 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
Café Press store and
Buy Something! In addition to the Travel mug shown to the right, we
have T-shirts, Hoodies, Tote bags, Pet food bowls, etc. A portion
of each sale goes to help us in our TNR efforts. To visit the store,
just click on the Travel mug or visit our website
and click on the 'Buy Something' button at the top - Thank you! |
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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! |
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What is TNR (Trap / Neuter / Return)? 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. 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. |
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Feral Fixers,
NFP, is a certified 501c3 corporation - EIN Number 13-4364615 |
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