OUR SERVICES
Who Do We Help?
Project MEOW helps people who help cats. We work primarily with caregivers in the 19104, 19139 and 19143 zip codes. We assist caretakers who are feeding colonies (groups of cats living outdoors) and committed to trapping the cats in order to insure they are spayed/neutered.
We work together with these community members to facilitate ongoing care for the cats.
We also focus on helping community residents who find kittens or other at-risk cats who need to be removed from their current environment. This includes injured or sick cats.
How Do We Help?
We aim to make TNR possible for individuals in West Philadelphia by connecting individuals to the following resources:
- Trap Loans ($25 refundable deposit required)
- Trapping Assistance – Trapping for the first time can be intimidating. We’ll show you how it’s done, step-by-step. We can help trap cats for caregivers with special needs (elderly, disabled, large colonies, etc.)
- Pre-surgical holding – Once cats are trapped, they need a place to stay before going to their surgical appointment. You can do this in a basement, spare bath or bedroom. If you can’t hold them, we can often do it for you.
- Transport – Not everyone has a car. We make it easy to get your trapped kitty to its surgical appointment by transporting him/her for you. We transport to TNR clinics about once a week.
- Post-surgical Recovery – Cats can be released only after they’ve had a chance to recover from their surgery (2-7 days). If you’re not able to provide post-surgical recovery, one of our volunteers can often do it for you.
- Cost – Every cat we rescue from the street costs an average of $100 for just the basics. This includes the fee for the spay/neuter surgery, a FeLV/FIV test, rabies and other vaccines, post-surgery medications and basic food and litter. As an all-volunteer nonprofit, we rely solely on generous donors for funding to cover these costs. We can only assist as many cats as funding allows.
No amount is too small. Please consider donating via the Donate button on our homepage or directly on Facebook.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU FIND A CAT YOU WANT TO HELP:
How to help found kittens: If you find kittens outside, your first impulse might be to scoop them up and bring them home. Unless they are in imminent danger, this could be the worst thing for the kittens. Please check out this guide before you act. Contact us if you have further questions.
Guidance for community cats: If you believe any cat in your neighborhood is at risk, please contact us to discuss solutions to resolve the situation.
Evaluation: Project MEOW can help you evaluate found cats to determine whether they should be fostered in preparation for adoption or if they would be better off cared for outdoors. We have no physical location to use as an adoption center. Instead, we have developed a network of foster homes, from which cats are directly adopted. Through partnerships with rescue organizations and shelters, through social media, through online postings and through networking by community members, we attempt to find homes for as many of these friendly cats as possible.