Kitty Christmas! Wow! What an awesome event. I have so many
thanks to give, I don’t know where to begin. It was an absolutely wonderful
day. It’s actually hard for me to understand the support that you all give—I know
that it is all received with much love and gratitude by me.
This past week we have been preparing for the Kitty
Christmas. The latest I was told was that there were almost 30 boxes. We
cleaned out our Kitty City, the storage room, shed #1 and shed #2 in
preparation of this event. Everything has it’s place so we keep organized! In
doing so, I realized just how low we were on items. ALL the food holding
shelves in Kitty City were completely empty. In Shed #1 where the litter and
dry cat/kitten food is kept—we had ¾ of the shed empty. But Shed #2 really
worried me. That’s the shed that all dry products are stores, also the Clorox
wipes, glass cleaner, plates, many things that won’t freeze. Well, that shed
was almost empty. And we had NO snackers
in the snack container—only what was in the drawer on the counter. Wow---I was
a bit worried. And then came Kitty
Christmas. I am extremely pleased to say we are full up, stocked up and sitting
here with all shelves, cupboards, closets and sheds full! My gratitude is huge.
Here’s a bit of a breakdown of a few things:
610 cases of canned food
1000 snacker containers/bags
59 of the 40# bags of litter
97 bags dry cat food
42 bags of baby cat food
60 cases baby food
Altogether, there were 601 boxes. And the approximate weight
of all these boxes were 15,000 pounds. Wow.
Kitty Christmas was just amazing, fantastic and so much fun and so
grateful of all the gifts. Simply astounding the giving that went on. Humbles
me and makes me want to do my very best for all the cats and for our
supporters. Many thanks to Bill, Angie and Elizabeth for all of their hard work
in this project--huge thanks. They gave up their garage to accommodate the
boxes for 2 months! And to Hornish Trucking who supplied the semi. And to
Scrappy who donated his driving and time to help us. And to so many volunteers and
friends who came to help move many many boxes—a very big job. It was very organized—off the semi, into the
back of the Center, up front to open in front of the cam, off thru the front
office and to their various storage destinations!
And there’s even
more---in addition to the boxes, we had gift cards! Some of these will help us
with our drug store purchases. Some were pet store cards, Meijer cards, gas
cards—all will be of big help. And then we had more surprises!
** Trucker and kitty friends
(along with an anonymous donator) now has our veterinary bill paid in full at
Dr. Pettigrew’s office. Apparently the kitties all raided their kitty banks and
pulled all their pennies together to pay for this bill---it came to 157,800
pennies! They had just enough to cover the bill! Love these cats!
** Zaney, Zap, Zest and
Zeke (my 4 Z’s), along with Sevaun’s help
(and along with an anonymous donator) figured out how to contact our
ProPane company for info. They have pooled their allowances together and “we
made a donation to pay for the Propane and will continue to pay the bill for
this winter”. Wow—just about blew me
away when I heard this. Apparently the Z’s wanted ALL the kitties at FFRC to be
warm this winter!
**Derecho, Shamballie,
Sindile, Jersey and the rest of the FFRC kitties—they said they know how
important spaying and neutering is. So they got together with a secret friend
and made some “monies with our cuteness”. They have now made sure our 12/12
surgeries are all paid IN FULL! I am so so grateful—what a relief.
**And another big surprise—Montana
& Crew --donated 600 bags (well, minus 1—we won’t say which kitty ate one
of the bags before sending!) of kitty snackers!
100 for each cat. Plus, each cat made a donation individually to FFRC.
Big thanks!
I have been given a gift
of “keeping it easy and simple”—meaning that I am told I should not do all the
individual thank yous that I normally like to do. So…….here is my thanks that I
read last night:
“A BIG thank you to YOU!
This warm feeling of sharing, giving, compassion, friendship and love truly
surrounds this Rescue Center. I know I’m blessed with your friendship and
support. Sometimes when things are rough here, I know you are here for me and
help me rediscover the strength that I need to go on. I thank you for that. My
heart swells with deepest appreciation for your spirit of giving and sharing.
You all always give me hope. Your gifts mean a lot to this rescue center, just
as your gift of friendship also does. We are indeed an FFRCNation and I’m
grateful for that bond. Merry Christmas!” It truly was an awesome day in every sense of the word!
We also have other thanks
to give too!
Kristina S from CA—donation
to FFRC
Tammy/bellabell, Keith
& kitties—a donation to use wherever needed.
PSW—donation and Happy
Holidays!
Hallie G---doantion to
FFRC
Little Frank—donation to
FFRC
David D—donation to FFRC
Debra S from FL—donation
to FFRC
Ju-In-Ji—donation to
FFRC, for medical fund
Anonymous Friend—donation
in memory of Honey & Sherlock, to be used for something special for the
cats
Joco and viewers--for the
horse wreath that we have hanging on the farm fence
Donnajb—2 cases baby
food, beef
Yankeechick & Jeter—donation
to FFRC for Merry Christmas
We also received $38.59 from
ResQwalk! And right now, it’s looking good that we will be in first place for
this week. I received an email from them explaining the donation for November’s
walking. I sent back a thank you and they responded back so nicely! We are now
up to 103 walkers. Keep those miles coming for the kitties and for your healthy
heart! Thank you.
Once again I am the bearer of sad news. We lost a Porchie
cat yesterday thru an accident in the parking lot yesterday, Saturday. Our sweet
girl Gwendolyn passed away. She apparently climbed up into the motor of a car.
Upon picking her up, she was still alive, fluids were quickly started but
within a minute she was gone. She was given a quick “we love you, girl” and she
passed. So sad and devastated us when
this happened. Thank you for loving her. She was such a loverbug. Gwenie
arrived with the 9 other barn cats last winter. She quickly made her way up to
the Porchie area and after being there for a bit, went and brought her twin
brother, Caesar up too, to be a Porchie. We welcomed them both. Gwenie so
enjoyed all the petting and snackers. When this incident happened yesterday, we all
decided we had to put on our brave front and get thru the Kitty Christmas. Today
the sadness and loss of her is felt. The Porchies received extra turkey treats
this morning with their breakfast.
