Lawrence County Humane Society: Grant Report

How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?

Thanks to this grant, we have been offering a reduced-fee adoption rate since April 1, 2018. Our regular adoption fee is $60 per cat/kitten. From this grant, we are reducing our adoption fee to only $40 per cat/kitten.

Even though the notification letter was dated March 21st, the award letter was not received by our organization until March 26th. Therefore, we delayed implementation until April 1, 2018. We will continue to offer this reduced-fee adoption rate for as long as the grant funds allow -- which will total 100 adoptions over the course of the next several weeks.

How many pets did this grant help?

Since the grant was received and implemented right at the beginning of kitten season, and the overwhelming abundance of "free kittens" seem to flood our area, the month of April produced only eight adoptions, while the month of May produced nine adoptions. However, we are confident that, as more people realize the benefits of adopting versus getting a “free cat/kitten,” our adoption rates will increase back to our normal rates of 20-25 per month.

Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.

The following story is provided by a woman named Kat Floyd, who contacted me in early April 2018 and wanted to adopt a male, all-black kitten. At that time we did not have any kittens old enough for adoption, but I told her we had an all-black mommy cat who had recently had a litter of four kittens who were all-black. I sent her pictures of the kittens and she immediately fell in love. Over the next several weeks, we stayed in touch and I gave her progress reports on how they were doing. Once they were big enough to be considered “adoption-eligible,” I notified her that she could come and meet them — and the right kitty spoke to her!

“Hi, my name is Kat Floyd. Here is Onyx (whom we renamed Ember) with my daughter. Thank you for working with me to adopt this precious black kitten. Many people in our area believe black cats are unlucky and no one wants one as a pet. We, however, wanted this exact one. Working with me and using the grant to help with the adoption fees helped give me the opportunity to give this black cat a forever home. I was able to use the money saved to purchase items necessary to take care of this kitten. Thanks so much for helping me and allowing me to adopt this precious kitten!
Sincerely,
Kat Floyd”