First Volunteer Orientation for the New Year!

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We will be holding a volunteer orientation for interested people on Sunday, January 23rd, from 11 – 11:30 a.m. Come learn more about helping out at the lounge! Please see the event below for more information and to sign up. If you haven’t already, be sure to fill out the volunteer application, too.

2021 Wrap-Up

2021 has been a very good year for Cassie’s Cats! We have brought in cats from unhappy and/or unsafe situations. We have had adoptions. We have recruited a team of volunteers. And we have had many, many visitors. Here are some numbers to help illustrate our year:

Adoptions: 26! We’re so happy for the 26 cats and kittens we’ve helped find their furever homes. You can see them on our Success Stories page. We have 17 more cats and kittens currently in our care.

Volunteers: We have had 20 people volunteer at the lounge, helping to socialize kitties, talk with guests, feed and clean, transport cats, and more. We have a great team of caring people helping our cats and kittens stay safe, happy, and healthy.

Partners: We have worked with 6 shelters and rescues: Ventura County Animal Services, Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center, Los Angeles Animal Services, Apple Valley Animal Services, Foundling Kitten Society, and Stray Paws Animal Haven. In addition, we have worked with private parties and other rescuers, including Shannon’s Fosters and Moore Veterinary Care. Six of the kittens we’ve brought in came straight off the streets.

Spay/Neuter: We took in 7 kittens who were not spayed/altered and made sure that they had surgery to prevent future litters.

Pairs: We have adopted out 3 pairs of kittens: Oreo and Smudge, Willow and Angel, and Andy and Alex.

Visits: From September 1 to December 22, we had 314 visits to the lounge. During those 3 months, the most popular time was 2 pm (61 visits) and the most popular day was Saturday (126 visits).

The Cats: Our oldest resident is Sadie (13 years, 8 months). Our longest-time residents are Michael and Missy (220 days as of 12/27/21).

Donations: We have had countless donations of food, litter, treats, toys, and other in-kind donations. Because of that generosity, along with the financial donations we have received, we are proud to be ending the year in the black, financially. Our goal has always been to have a cushion in the bank to help us weather lean times, and continued generosity means we can take on cats and kittens who might need more medical attention.

We are looking forward to 2022! If you would like to donate to us or get involved, please check out our Donate page and our Volunteer Application.

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!

Volunteer Orientation Oct. 23rd

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We will be holding another volunteer orientation on Saturday, October 23rd at 10 a.m. Orientations typically last about 30 minutes. If you are interested in volunteering with us please fill out a volunteer application and sign up for a spot below. Hope to see some new faces helping in the lounge soon!

August Update

We are entering our tenth week of being open to the public this week and have had 5 adoptions so far! We are feeling happy about that and hope that Mittens, Bettie, Archie, Denzel, and Duke all have long and happy lives in their new homes.

Archie, now known as Wyatt
Denzel, our tripod cat
Duke, now known as Junior

We currently have 12 cats in the lounge: Michael, Missy, Sadie, Jacob, Snickers, Twix, Oreo, Smudge, Phoebe, Petey, Charlotte, and Kaylee. Michael and Missy are our longest residents, having come to the lounge in May. Charlotte and Kaylee are our newest residents, joining us from the West Valley shelter on August 7th.

Charlotte
Kaylee

We have two bonded pairs of cats that will need special adopters: Sadie and Jacob, and Snickers and Twix. Anything our supporters can do to share our cats will help network them and help them find furever homes as soon as possible. We are also trying to adopt Oreo and Smudge out together. They’re still just kittens at just 4.5 months old and a delight to watch as they wrestle together!

Snickers and Twix
Jacob
Sadie

We have been recruiting volunteers and have had about 10-12 people coming out to help at the lounge. We will be holding another volunteer orientation on September 11th at 10am. We are looking to build a team of volunteers who are passionate about and committed to our mission of helping rescued cats and kittens find safe, loving, permanent homes!

Our lobby shop continues to be a helpful source of fundraising for us, and we are looking forward to bringing in new items for fall and then the holidays. Come take a look at what we have to offer when you’re in the area. We also have a few things listed in our online shop.

Donations come in for food, litter, and other lounge necessities and we are so grateful! 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!

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 11am-5pm Wednesday-Saturday and 12pm-4pm on Sundays.