Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Remember, we are hosting an ongoing cat food drive to benefit the human neighbors who take care of the colonies.

Some are elders (up to 97!), some are also volunteers with feral cat organizations, others are veterans and families and even more have picked up the mantle from a family member – what a kind tribute.

We have Amazon wishlists set up for each caretaker that will deliver to their address. We also have Amazon wishlists for the organizations that partner with us. And we have a general wishlist that ships to our local partner, Mr. Sign on the Northside, for distribution where the need is greatest.

I realize that Laura and I had been starting lists for our work on the Northside project by project so I combined those into one. We try to get any excess into the hands of neighbors. We just cleaned the pet pantry and gave all of our kitten food to another caretaker/foster with young kittens as we do not have young kittens. Next, we are gathering up extra toys to share.

———-> DONATE HERE < ———-

Right now, we feed a small colony in our yard that includes indoor/outdoor cats belonging to neighbors, a resident groundhog, a family of possums, and our two resident ferals – Oksana and Mx. Pajamas.

Around Christmas, we took over a colony in our block. We started with three siblings who turned out to be 10 months. In the ensuing weeks, we’ve counted as many as 20 different cats.

The property owner next to the abandoned lot has granted permission for us to eventually set up a permanent feeding station and install trail cameras. The abandoned building could come down at any point. We have five winterized shelters. A friend is gathering scrap building material to create the feeding station. 

It is a very big project, much bigger than we ever expected, to TNR all of these cats, but we cannot turn back now.  And we can’t turn out back on the cat food drive. 

So how much food do we go through? This is my rough estimate for a month.

• 3 bags of dry food for resident cats (45 lbs total)
• 2 bags of dry for our backyard colony (33 lbs total)
• 3 bags of dry (and counting) for Faulsey Ferals (120 lbs total) 
• 60 cans of wet for residents
• 150 cans of wet for fosters 
• 240 cans of wet for ferals
• 10 bags of treats for residents and fosters
• 30 bags of treats for Faulsey Ferals
• 6 bags of litter (240 lbs)

You can see how sending a monthly order of some part of a list like this can have a big impact on any colony caretaker with limited resources. Foster organizations sometimes help with food and supplies. Pet food drives help, too. But there aren’t many resources for feral colony caretakers.

My dream is to get at least one monthly sustaining donor for each person on this list – be it a 15 lb bag of food or a 12 pack of wet food. Just have folks set up a monthly auto delivery And I also dream about those fine folks sending something monthly to the general pool so we can support everyone. You can find all the ways to donate on this page.

Can you drop food in person? Contact free, you can take to Mr. Sign during business hours. Or email pghcatladies@gmail.com to make arrangements.

Want to sign someone or yourself up for a list? All of that information in on this link.