Thank you.

In 2025, years of quietly trying to help Clarkston’s neighborhood cats became a little more real and a lot more urgent. It was clear that more needed to be done, and except for one or two neighbors lending financial (and emotional) support, no one else was going to do anything beyond unempathetic complaining. While a discussion about how unhelpful and exacerbating that aspect was would be worthwhile, we’ll save that for a later post to focus on the small triumphs of our TNRing 16 and finding homes for 18 kittens and cats.

None of this is easy. Financially, it’s costly, from vet visits to feeding and caring for those recuperating from surgery to fostering kittens who need to eat every four hours to caring for those outside still. The emotional wear on us is immense. Deciding to put any soul under the knife—and to face the complications that can arise—is weighty every single time. Our goal is to make their lives better, not worse or over. And we would be remiss not to remember the eight sweet kittens who didn’t even make it that far and did not survive a tragic, cruel, flea-infested summer. (And those are just the ones that we knew about/buried.) Our hearts broke so many times over the summer that we had moments when we weren’t sure we could bear to go on, but then another set of helpless eyes set their sights on us, compelling us to keep going.

Fortunately, we’ve learned a lot along the way. We are more adept at TNRing—for sure—and knowing how to try to give tiny, particularly vulnerable kittens their best chances, though vets continually remind us that litters are so big because some just don’t make it. And while right now we are kitten-free for the first time since September, we’ll be ready to try our best to help again when spring arrives with its inevitable kitten sightings.

In the meantime, if you can find it in your heart to donate anything to help us, we’d be most appreciative. Although we are not a 501(c)(3)—and frankly don‘t foresee trying to become one—we can use all the help we can get to pay for more TNRs, to purchase a much-wanted drop trap, and to feed recuperating and returned cats.

It’s a lot. And we don’t really want to do it, but we are (because no one else will). Thank you, and we wish you only the very best for 2026.