Through their foster home and barn cat programs, Stray Cat Blues helps rescue and rehome cats through the organization’s adoption centers at PetSmart in North Wales and Collegeville.
Development volunteer Alan Raisman said Stray Cat Blues’ mission is to help find safe homes for stray and abandoned cats.
“Our mission is to help find abandoned cats loving families,” Raisman said. “Cats could be abandoned for many reasons; they can be feral, wandering the streets, and sometimes families have to unfortunately surrender their cat.”
To combat the problem of abandoned or stray cats, Stray Cat Blues prioritizes socialization and adoption, providing a safe and loving environment before finding permanent homes.
“When we rescue a cat, we get them and put them in safe keeping in foster care. Then we get them socialized so that they can be around individuals so they can go into PetSmart for adoption, “ Raisman said.
According to foster home coordinator Sue Krause, fostering and volunteering for Stray Cat Blues is a very rewarding experience as cats’ lives are being saved.
“Saving lives is the most rewarding thing you can do. I’ve bottle-fed babies that are only a day old and are the size of a mouse. Generally only one in four usually live to be six months old,” Krause said.
Aside from just taking care of cats, Krause emphasizes the role of foster homes in rehoming stray cats.
“Fostering is so important because people often find kittens, and they don’t realize that their mom is somewhere around. They take them in and don’t know how to care for them,” Krause said. “With foster homes, we have a network of people who care for our cats until they are ready to be adopted.”
According to Stray Cat Blue volunteer trapper Amy Beal, trapping is an important part of rescuing cats off the street as most feral cats have not had many interactions with people, and are afraid of them.
Trapping stray cats allows for them to “be spayed or neutered, vaccinated” before being sent to foster homes or being put up for adoption.
Beal feels it is very important as it gets cats out of life-threatening conditions.
“One of the first projects I took on for Stray Cat Blues was at a farm in East Greenville, where I was told there were a few cats needing help,” Beal said. “Many cats were completely covered in fleas and ticks and emaciated, and the kittens had such severe upper respiratory infections that most of their eyes were crusted shut or so swollen.”
Beal feels rescuing cats is very rewarding as it allows the cats to experience a better quality of life.
“Some estimates say at least 80% of kittens born outside do not survive a year, and I’ve seen first-hand how horrific an existence it can be. Some of the adult cats ended up being friendly, so we were able to get them into foster care and adopted out,” Beal said.
According to Raisman, an important part of Stray Cat Blues that allows them to help over one thousand cats is the volunteers.
“You can volunteer for so many different things with us. Most people think you start out helping the cats directly, but it’s important that we have people who can help with other aspects,” Krause said. “We have people who can clean the cages, people who greet people who might be interested in our cats or even people who review adoption applications.”