Tag Archive for: #purrpartners

TownTalk: Purr Partners Preps Black Cat Bash Fundraiser

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Purr Partners, a Franklin County-based feline rescue and foster organization, is hosting its Black Cat Bash on Saturday, Oct. 14 to raise money for its ongoing efforts to provide medical treatment and homes to sick and adoptable cats.

Founder and president Lawanna Johnson said the nonprofit has been “absolutely swamped” with sick and injured animals. Johnson points to the COVID-19 pandemic for the surge in unwanted kittens and cats. Spay/neuter clinics were adversely affected by the pandemic, she said. “We’re still feeling the effects – we got set back about 20 years,” Johnson said on Tuesday’s TownTalk.

The Black Cat Bash is the group’s largest fundraiser of the year, and Johnson said Purr Partners will need every penny it can get to further its efforts. This is the third year for the fundraiser, which Johnson said was interrupted by COVID and then resumed in 2022. The fundraiser will be held at Campbell Lodge, part of the Durant Nature Center, located at 3237 Spottswood Street off Gresham Lake Road in Raleigh.

Tickets are $50 and include a catered dinner from Milton’s, a full dessert bar and one drink ticket.

Johnson said she hopes folks decide to wear costumes and be in a costume contest during the event. There will be a selfie booth for snapping silly photos and the band Reelin’ in the Years will provide music for dancing. And WIZS’s own Bill Harris will emcee the event, which will be held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

There’s an online auction open now through Oct. 14; visit https://www.purrpartners.org/black-cat-bash-2023/ and click on the Black Cat Bash tab for details about buying tickets and signing up to bid on auction items.

The kitten “season” usually runs from April through November or December, Johnson said, and Purr Partners can have between 200 and 250 cats in its care. During that time. “Once kitten season slows down, our number will drop to 100 or 120,” she said.

She said she gets about 100 phone calls or emails each week from people “begging for help. Sometimes, there’s just not an answer,” Johnson said.

The Black Cat Bash proceeds will go to pay vet bills and “to save cats and kittens that come to us in varying forms of distress,” Johnson said.

 

 

TownTalk: Cats And Kittens Need Your Help

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Animal rescue organizations – especially those that focus on felines – are feeling the ripple effects of COVID-19 restrictions that shuttered spay and neuter clinics.

Lawanna Johnson, president of Franklin County-based Purr Partners, said the number of kittens being born this year is mainly due to the fact that those clinics couldn’t perform spay and neuter procedures.

Johnson spoke with WIZS co-host Bill Harris Wednesday during the People and Pets segment of TownTalk. She estimated that more than 3 million of the spay/neuter surgeries weren’t able to be done because the clinics were, at the time, deemed non-essential services.

Now, even with pandemic restrictions largely removed, “clinics are so backed up you can’t get appointments,” she noted.

There simply aren’t many low-cost spay and neuter options in the four-county area, and Johnson estimates that she gets 50 calls a day from folks in the community asking for suggestions or help with cats that have shown up in their area.

Originally started as a not-for-profit cat adoption program to assist high-kill shelters in the area, Purr Partners has shifted some of its attention in the wake of this continuing crisis and has started a program in Franklin County it calls “Wandering Whiskers.”

This program focuses on a three-step process called trap/neuter/release, or TNR, for short.

“We have shifted our budget to start trying to deal with this problem,” Johnson said, and the word is getting out.

Purr Partners can help Franklin County residents get feral colonies or community cats spayed or neutered through Wandering Whiskers. The only caveat, Johnson said, is that the residents have to agree to take the cats back and continue to feed them.

Right now, they’re able to help 30-40 cats each month. The program has a Facebook page and can be contacted at Wanderingwhiskers21@yahoo.com.

Unlike dogs that come into heat twice a year, cats can come into heat every couple of months, which exacerbates the problem, Johnson said.

Purr Partners always needs volunteers to help out, whether it’s by fostering cats or simply educating the public. Johnson said the current mantra is “spay one stray.”

At any given time, Purr Partners has up to 250 cats available for adoption. There are about 50 volunteers dedicated to help foster the animals, socialize them and get them ready for adoption. There are another 10 or so who agree to be temporary fosters.

Three PetSmart locations across Wake County serve as adoption centers for Purr Partners and volunteers have meet and greets on the weekends for prospective cat owners at the PetSmarts in Wake Forest and in Raleigh on Capital Boulevard and Six Forks Road.

Visit www.purrpartners.org to learn more about becoming a volunteer or to make a donation.

TownTalk: Purr Partners Prepares For Kitten Season

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Having a pet can be a wonderful experience – who doesn’t love the idea of a cute little furr ball greeting you when you come home after a hard day’s work?

But with pet ownership comes responsibilities, in addition to general care and trips to the vet, and Lawanna Johnson sees the consequences first-hand when pet owners don’t live up to their end of the bargain.

Johnson is president and founder of Purr Partners, a feline rescue dedicated to saving cats and kittens and finding them forever homes.

The nonprofit was established in 2009 on a shoestring budget and today thrives as a leading rescue, foster and adoption facility for cats and kittens. Johnson spoke with WIZS’s Bill Harris Thursday on a recurring segment of TownTalk called Pets and People.

“There is really an epidemic right now going on of cats being dumped everywhere,” she said. Five years ago, Johnson and others in the rescue world could identify a “kitten season,” usually in the spring, with little or no kittens in February or March. But now, “kitten season is really becoming year-round here in North Carolina,” she said.

Whether it’s because of the economy or because of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting the spay/neuter clinics, there are a lot of cats and kittens making their way into shelters and rescue organizations like Purr Partners.

And they’re not in great health. “It’s heartbreaking,” Johnson said. “They’re not thriving, they’re not surviving.” It costs thousands of dollars to get them healthy, she added. Dollars that come from the generosity of regular donors and from fundraisers, like the Purr Partners “Black Cat Bash” held in October each year.

Purr Partners relies on donations and fundraisers to continue their work, which includes taking adoptable cats to three Petsmart locations in the Wake Forest/Raleigh area.

Volunteers are on hand from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. each weekend at the PetSmarts in Wake Forest, and the stores at Capital Blvd. and Millbrook Road and Six Forks and Strickland.

Adoptions begin with an application, which provides Purr Partners staff with information to help find the perfect match.

“You’re making hopefully a lifetime commitment,” Johnson said. “You want it to be happy and you want to be happy with it,” she said of the cat or kitten that you choose.

But realistically speaking, thing don’t always work out. And that’s ok. Purr Partners has a two-week trial period, so it it doesn’t work out, you can bring the cat back and either try again or get your adoption fee refunded.

Visit https://www.purrpartners.org/ to see the cats available for adoption or to sign up to volunteer.

 

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TownTalk: Saving Cats And Kittens Is Purr Partners Goal

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There are a couple of important things to consider before becoming a pet owner, if you ask Luwanna Johnson, founder and president of Purr Partners rescue. Johnson and her team of volunteers devote countless hours to the Franklin County-based rescue operation, which takes in as many cats as it can, but it’s not enough.

“The number one thing people can do is spay and neuter their pets,” Johnson said. Without that step, she told WIZS’s Bill Harris on Tuesday’s TownTalk, “nothing is going to change.”

She said her organization gets upwards of 50 or 60 calls each week from people who have found cats or kittens, either abandoned or as strays.

This is not a new phenomenon, she said. “Sadly, it’s happening every year – every year it’s worse,” she said.

Some of the kitten “explosion” can be blamed on the fact that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the spay-neuter clinics closed. Those who were inclined to have their cats fixed couldn’t. Now, she said, those cats have had kittens and the kittens have had kittens.

But it certainly isn’t the only factor in this dilemma, she said.

“As the human population explodes, the cat population does as well,” she said, explaining that folks who move to the “country” and let their cats live outside. And if they’re not spayed or neutered, Mother Nature takes over.

“Cats are just not safe outside,” Johnson said. “Our world is not safe for them,” she continued.

“Never let your cats outside, especially if (they) aren’t fixed,” Johnson stressed. Even if they are fixed, she said too often she sees cats come into rescue that have been hit by cars or attacked by other animals.

“They rarely survive an encounter with a car,” she said, “and they’re prey for coyotes, dogs and even humans.” She said Purr Partners has taken in more than a dozen cats in the past year with gunshot wounds.

These injured animals aren’t feral, she said. “These are the friendly cats – those who are coming up to people asking for help. And they’re being shot.”

And there’s another category of cat that often find themselves in her rescue – Johnson calls them “unsuccessful strays.” She defines this type of cat as one that has either wandered from its home or yard, or was scared or chased away and now finds itself unable to fend for itself.

“They’re not capable of surviving” on their own, and they come to Purr Partners in “horrible condition…they don’t know how to live outside,” she said. One such adult male came in weighing less than 4 pounds, she said.

So, spaying and neutering is the first thing a responsible pet owner should consider. The second important thing to consider is purchasing pet insurance, Johnson said.

It’s not realistic to think that, at some time or another, your pet will never need the services of a veterinarian. Or worse, an emergency veterinary clinic.

Vet care has become extremely expensive, she said, and just like the human members of the family, pets also need regular care to stay healthy.

And pet insurance has come a long way since its inception, Johnson said. For about $20 a month, cat owners can have coverage that will pay for emergencies, injuries and all kinds of illnesses.

Speaking of vet bills, about 99 percent of all Purr Partner donations are used to pay for veterinary services.

“We operate solely on donations and fundraising,” she said. The biggest fundraiser is the “Black Cat Bash” in October, which is a costume party held at the Durant Road Nature Park.

Send an email to purrpartners@yahoo.com to learn more.

Visit https://www.purrpartners.org/ to see the list of adoptable cats, learn how to volunteer, fill out an adoption application or click the big DONATE button!

Checks may be sent to:

Purr Partners

P.O. Box. 905, Youngsville, NC 27596

 

 

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TownTalk: Purr Partners Helps Cats And Kittens Find Furever Homes

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Purr Partners is a local nonprofit rescue group that finds homes for cats. Co-founder Lawanna Johnson said she and her teams of volunteers work tirelessly to care for their wards, whether they come from shelters, from owner surrenders or from hoarding situations.

“Our mission has always been that we would be advocates for cats,” Johnson said. Right now, there are a little over a hundred cats that are in their care, with about 40 available for adoption at any given time.

Volunteers are caring for several feline mamas and their kittens right now, she told fellow cat lover Bill Harris on Monday’s Town Talk. And that is just the tip of the iceberg, Johnson noted, because the dreaded “kitten season” is fast approaching.

Reducing the pet overpopulation problem is also part of Purr Partner’s over-arching goal. Educating pet owners about having their animals spayed or neutered is a critical piece of the problem, she said. While there aren’t that many no-cost or low-cost programs that serve our area, there are several places that offer discounts for having animals – usually dogs and cats – spayed or neutered.

Traditionally, the county animal shelter is where unwanted animals – again, usually dogs and cats – are held until they can be adopted. But Johnson said cats are surrendered much more often and are euthanized at much greater rates than dogs.

Purr Partners uses annual data from the state Department of Agriculture to identify high-kill shelters and then work with those shelters to get cats into the rescue and try to get them adopted.

There simply are not enough homes and not enough places to house all the cats that need to find a safe place to live, she said. They don’t just get cats from shelters, Johnson said. Just one day ago, they took in six cats from the western part of the state that were removed from a hoarding situation. Since July, she said, they have gotten as many as 20 cats at once that were removed from a hoarding situation.

As a rescue organization, Purr Partners also finds itself having to say “no” to additional cats when they are tight on space. “We can’t always help,” she said. “We just don’t have enough space.”

Unaltered female felines can get pregnant every 8-10 weeks, Johnson said. With the average litter producing 4-5 kittens, it’s easy to see how important spaying and neutering becomes in the quest to reduce the unwanted pet population.

“We try to educate people on how to handle the problem,” she explained. All the cats that are adopted through Purr Partners are spayed or neutered.

Cats can make wonderful pets, Johnson said, and they surely have different personalities. Some cats are lovable, stay-in-your-lap kind of pets, while others are aloof and shun interaction with their humans. “I find them endlessly fascinating,” she said.

But Purr Partners works hard to match cat personalities with what prospective adopters are looking for to ensure that the cats find forever homes.

“We don’t adopt kittens under six months into single-cat households,” she said. “If you want a kitten, you need to get two.” Kittens need another cat to teach them manners and for socialization, she said. “There’s a reason kittens are born into litters.”

Visit https://www.purrpartners.org/ to learn more about the organization, email Johnson at purrpartners@yahoo.com and visit their Facebook page to see the cats currently available for adoption.

 

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