Have you been thinking about a new t-shirt, sweatshirt, or hoodie? Use coupon code VALUEDGUEST for 10% off some of our designs! You can see our fundraising shop at https://www.bonfire.com/store/cassies-cats
Happy holidays!
Late November Updates
December 2nd will mark our 6-month anniversary. We will be celebrating 22 adoptions: Mittens, Bettie, Archie, Denzel, Duke, Oreo and Smudge (together), Petey, Phoebe, Charlotte, Kaylee, Topaz, Willow and Angel (together), Bagel, Dallas, Alex and Andy (together), Chewy, Vader, Buffy, and Yoda! We are so happy that all of these kitties will have long and happy lives in their new homes.
We will also be celebrating the 12 cats in the lounge: Michael, Missy, Sadie, Jacob, Snickers, Twix, Rachel, Cheyenne, Hershal, Cindy, Coral, and Adam. Michael and Missy continue to be our long-time residents, having come to the lounge on May 21st. Sadie and Jacob are our oldest cats at 13 and 11 years old, respectively. We would LOVE to see some more adoptions before the end of the year, especially for some of our adult cats. Our two bonded pairs even have support on their adoption fees from one of our donors for the right homes.
People ask where the cats come from. So far we have partnered with Ventura County Animal Services, Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center, Los Angeles Animal Services, Apple Valley Animal Services, Foundling Kitten Society, Stray Paws Animal Haven, and Shannon’s Fosters.
Our lobby shop continues to be a helpful source of fundraising for us, and we have enjoyed adding items especially for the holidays. Come take a look at what we have to offer when you’re in the area. You might find a great gift for a teacher, your hairstylist, or even yourself! We also have a few things listed in our online shop.
In-kind donations of food, litter, supplements and other lounge necessities come in regularly and we appreciate it! We have wishlists at Amazon and Chewy for supporters to shop from. And of course, we always appreciate financial donations. The support from the community is incredibly valuable in helping us help these kitties!
Visiting the Lounge
When visiting we encourage reservations so that you are sure you can visit when you want to. We are limiting lounge visitors to 4 at a time. Walk-ins are welcome, however. We are open Wednesday-Sunday and our website is kept up to date with any special holiday hours or closures.
Fundraising Update
We are, and will always be fundraising! Donations to Cassie’s Cats are tax-deductible. We need our mission to be shared with others in Ventura and the surrounding communities as well as further out, to anyone who shares our values and wants to see cats and kittens finding their fur-ever homes!
*Use the blue DONATE button at the bottom of any page on our website or visit our DONATE page
*Mail a check to 1744 E Main St, Ventura CA 93001
*Send us a donation through Venmo (@cassies-cats)
*Shop our wishlists at Chewy and Amazon to send us in-kind donations
Thank you for your continued support! www.cassiescatsandkittens.org
Thanksgiving Hours and Specials
During the week of Thanksgiving, we will be closed on Wednesday and Thursday. We will be open that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 12-4 pm each day. Visits will be just $5/30 minutes and $10/60 minutes all weekend, and we have increased capacity to 6 visitors at a time to accommodate families. Make your reservation now! Everything in the lobby shop will also be 10% off for those 3 days. Hope to see you there!
November Updates
Current Cats and Kittens in the Lounge
We have 14 cats and kittens living at the lounge, ranging in age from about 5-6 months old to 13 years old. Our three newest residents (Cindy, Coral, and Hershal) come to us from Stray Paws Animal Haven in El Monte, CA. They are still adjusting to their new surroundings and are not out and about with all of the other cats yet. Our next three newest are Cheyenne, Dallas, and Bagel. Cheyenne was trapped outside of Golf n Stuff in Ventura and she’s a very friendly young mom whose kitten days are behind her forever now that she’s been spayed. Thanks go out to Foundling Kitten Society for working to get her trapped, vaccinated, spayed, and transported to us. Dallas and Bagel came to us from SPARC and we’re hoping different exposure here will help them find their perfect home(s). They are not brothers but they get along great! Buffy, our little black kitten, also loves playing with her new friends. Our longtime residents are still with us: Michael, Missy, Snickers, Twix, Jacob, and Sadie (plus Rachel, though she hasn’t been here quite so long). They’re happy with us and well cared for, but we sure would like to see them land in real homes. Adopting out cats who are older is harder than adopting out the younger ones. But we know there are kind-hearted people out there who want to help a cat and meet that cat where it is rather than hope to mold its behavior and nature in some way.
Volunteers
We’re up to about 20 volunteers at the lounge now and always looking for more help! Some people are able to volunteer on a regular basis just about every week while others can only come in sporadically. We are grateful for all of the help we receive and definitely still need more. If you would like to volunteer with us please fill out our volunteer application. During business hours shifts are two hours long. We also have shifts to help open the lounge (one hour) and close the lounge (45 minutes). Shifts during business hours do require some customer service potentially, while opening and closing shifts are just the volunteers and cats. All shifts include time to just hang out with the cats!
Kitten Adoptions
Chewy, Vader, and Yoda are now available for pre-adoption. We anticipate sending them home around November 29th, after they’ve had their spay/neuter surgeries and the second round of kitten vaccinations. If you are interested in applying for any of them please contact us.
Events
We are having another “Cats at Night” event on November 4th. Visitors can come to the lounge for tea and dessert for 75 minutes and see what the cats are like at night. (The last few times we’ve been there at night they’ve been wide awake!) During Thanksgiving week we will have modified hours, rates, and capacity, and we’ll be offering 10% off all purchases.
Fundraising
We have added a few new items to the lobby shop and encourage you to take a look. It’s a great way to find some small gifts and help support the cats. We have some new pillowcases in various prints (cat, holiday, and other), a few aprons, scented jar candles, new earrings, and more, plus new toys and stockings for the cats in your life. If you’d like to help out by sending needed items for the cats and the lounge you can shop our Amazon and Chewy wishlists, or our Target wishlist that’s all just-for-fun stuff for the cats to help us celebrate our 6-month anniversary of being open on December 2nd!
Thank you, as always, for your support!
September Updates
Since our last update, we have had four more adoptions. We are so happy for Petey, Phoebe, Oreo, and Smudge and hope they have long, happy, healthy lives in their new homes! We’ve adopted 9 cats and kittens out since opening in June. We currently have 13 cats and kittens in our care, and 10 of those are available for adoption. You can see them here. Our 3 newest kittens are dealing with some typical shelter kitten health issues and as soon as they’re 100% they’ll be available too.
All of the cats currently in our care came from animal shelters. Michael, Missy, Jacob, Sadie, Snickers, and Twix were owner surrenders. Charlotte, Topaz, and Kaylee were brought in as strays. Rachel was abandoned at an animal hospital and transferred to a shelter. The three newest kittens were all brought in by their “owners”. We are doing our best to get cats and kittens out of unsafe and unhappy living situations and giving them a chance to relax in our home-like space. Potential adopters will hopefully see the cats’ true potential in our environment.
Visits to the lounge have slowed down a bit in the last couple of weeks and we figure it’s due to the end of summer/back to school. People need to get back into those routines. Once fall is fully underway we’ll be looking at our lounge hours and potentially adjusting them if need be. For now, we’re open Wednesday-Saturday from 11am-5pm and Sunday from 12-4pm.
We are increasing our efforts this month to get Jacob (11) and Sadie (13) adopted, as well as Twix (8) and Snickers (8). Both pairs would do best in quieter homes. None of the cats needs constant attention, although Jacob in particular loves people! Snickers does too. Sadie and Twix are more reserved but come out to say hello and Twix even plays when it’s quiet in the lounge. Both pairs of kitties have a portion of their adoption fees sponsored for the right home.
We would love to see some supporters set up recurring donations. You can use this link to start a monthly donation. Even $5-$10 a month helps! The link goes through PayPal but you can use a credit or debit card for your donation. Thank you for helping us help the cats!