With new groups of furry friends constantly dropping into Best for Kitty, the organization is always dependent on assistance from the community to continue its mission of housing cats.
Best for Kitty is a Fort Frances-based non-profit registered charity dedicated to feline rescue. The organization has been operated by a small group of volunteers since 2020 and is focused on finding permanent homes for stray or abandoned cats after they have received vaccinations, spaying or neutering, de-worming, ear mite treatment and overall health assessments. Since first being founded, the team of volunteers has helped over 1,000 cats, according to President Joan Foley.
“It’s an ever-present need,” Foley said. “It never goes away. It’s constant, daily and it’s a lot of hard work.”
When it comes to a constant stream of housing cats, feeding them and paying for their veterinary bills, the costs quickly stack up and lead to high regular expenses.
“The vet is our biggest expense,” Foley said. “Food and litter costs are substantial as well, but the vet is our biggest.”
Although they have the occasional grant support from organizations, Foley said the vast majority of Best for Kitty funding comes from regular people in the Rainy River District.
“About 95 per cent of our funding comes from community support.
“It’s pretty amazing when you think about it. People donate to keep us going and they’ve kept us going this long. It’s been about six years now, going on seven and it’s all because of community support.”
When it comes to how people can help out, Foley said that they are always in need of donations and drivers able to make trips out to pick up cats in need, or to drop off those which they’ve found permanent homes for and just need the transportation to get them there.
Foley said it is also extremely important for people to get their cats spayed or neutered. With female cats being able to give birth to multitudes of kittens in a single year, owners who ensure they’ve had them fixed are preventing more strays from appearing on the streets.
“We preach that all the time,” she said. “It’s the biggest problem, not just in our area, but everywhere. one female cat can have a lot, a lot of kittens in a year, and then of course her kittens have kittens as well within that year as well.
“You know, we all get that it’s very expensive, but if you start with the first one, you’ll be saving the 30 to 40 that eventually end up being there. Spay and neuter because it takes a lot of the rescue problems away.”
Currently there are 14 cats under the care of Best for Kitty, some being fostered and the others slated for adoption. Cats and kittens in need of a home can be viewed on the organization’s Facebook page.
Anyone interested in helping in Best for Kitty’s mission of finding homes for district cats can make monetary donations by e-transferring funds to bestforkitty.ca, with tax receipts being issued for any over $20.
Supporters can also help by purchasing items for the non-profit off of their Amazon registry by visiting www.bestforkitty.net and following the link under the “Donate” tab.
