Causes: Animal Protection & Welfare, Animals

Mission: Cat town's mission is to transform the approach to saving shelter cats, reducing euthanasia nationwide. Our focus is to find great homes for cats who are considered unadoptable in the traditional rescue model.

Programs: Our foster program provides a safety net for cats who would be euthanized at the shelter because they seem unadoptable there, and because there is no other local rescue group who would pull these cats. During 2017, we maintained a program of approximately 60 foster cats at any given time, including seniors with medical needs, cats recovering from surgery and cats who were so stressed or shut down at the shelter as to be unknowable there. Potential adopters meet cats in their foster home, where they are most relaxed and can show their best selves. Through a collaborative partnership with our municipal shelter, our focus on the hardest-to-place cats has helped the shelter reduce the euthanasia rate for cats by 70%.

our cat caf is a cage-free adoption center and is the first of its kind in the u. S. The actual cafe is run by a separate entity, rawr coffee bar, and is no longer part of cat town. A primary focus at the cat cafe is socializing older kittens through our forgotten kitten project. These are hard-to-place kittens who come into our municipal shelter partner at four months or older, after the ideal window for socializing them has closed. Because socializing them is so challenging, they are overlooked by other groups and at high risk for euthanasia. By being in the cat caf, with access to confident cat role models, they become socialized and get adopted.

in july 2017, we expanded our adoption center to include the studios, a special place for the hardest-to-place cats. This center provides a safe environment for the cats at greatest risk for euthanasia at municipal shelters. This center provides special housing for cats who are under socialized, older and/or have medical needs, allowing these cats to meet potential adopters in an environment where they feel safe.