The Cat Collaborative

01/23/2025

We had another successful pet clinic on Tuesday with 26 cats being fixed & vaccinated at no cost to their owners!

Some of the cats weren’t thrilled about their spa day, but all of their owners were!

Our cheek of the week winner this week was LOUIS!

Our free pet clinic includes spay/neuter, rabies vaccine, FVRCP vaccine, & flea treatment 😸

If you or someone you know needs their pet cat fixed at no cost, please fill out the link below to be added to our wait list!

https://www.thecatcollaborative.org/spay/neuter-clinic-for-pet-cats

01/15/2025

Philadelphia Urgent Rescue & Relief, Inc - PURR takes so many TCC cats and Glinda is one of them!

Glinda was born with eyelid angenesis and is having specialty surgery today at Blue Pearl!

Please consider donating & helping one of our best rescue partners!

The day has finally come for Glinda!

Today she will be having her eyelid angenesis correction surgery at Blue Pearl!

Glinda is a sweet former mama who was living in a junkyard cranking out litter after litter while also battling this painful condition with her eyes. Eyelid angenesis is when the eyelids do not fully form and it is extremely uncomfortable.

The only solution is surgery with a veterinary ophthalmologist and is quite expensive but Glinda deserves to live a comfortable life.

We were quoted an estimate of around $3,000 and we had raised a little bit before but really need to raise closer to the total. This is a huge hit, especially at the start of the year, but we won’t let her continue to be in pain.

Please consider making a donation towards Glinda! No amount is too small and every single dollar makes a difference!

01/14/2025

Today we’d like to wish a very Happy Birthday to two integral members of our team - our Executive Director Hilary Coulter AND our Community Outreach Coordinator Julianne Davis!! 🧡

Both of these women have changed the lives of thousands of cats in Philadelphia and we’re so grateful to have them!

Happy Birthday Cat Queens! 👑🐈

01/10/2025

Thank you to The Sanctuary at Haafsville for this donation of nearly 30 can of KMR! Our trappers can keep this on hand when waiting on a mama cat and having to care for the kittens. In addition to taking a lot of our fantastic cats The Sanctuary always helps us with donations when they have items that could help us out!

01/09/2025

We had another busy pet clinic this Tuesday! 🧡

31 cats & kittens were fully vetted (spay/neuter, FVRCP vaccine, rabies vaccine, & flea treated) at no cost to their owners!

We often have owners coming in with multiple cats (or full litters) and we’re happy to help with those situations too!

Our cheek of the week award went to cow kitty Speckles!

If you or someone you know needs their pet cat fixed for free, please fill out our form below to be added to our waitlist 👇

https://www.thecatcollaborative.org/spay/neuter-clinic-for-pet-cats

01/08/2025

You may have thought we couldn't have anymore interesting and happy updates to share by now, but we do have more!
As we have been working through such significant changes to our team this person has remained constant and shown her dedication to our mission and her position within TCC.

We are very happy to announce that Nicole Legg , who has been our Operations Manager at our Arsenal facility for over a year, has accepted a promotion in title, and responsibility, and become our Director of Operations!

When Nicole applied to work at TCC in 2023, she was already well known to us through all of her hard work in local rescue. Nicole is one of the strongest advocates for cats (and all animals) in all of Philadelphia. She is clear about her convictions and she stands by them. Nicole's love and care for every cat that crosses her path is what has made her such a perfect fit for TCC. Nicole never bats an eye at taking in a hard to place cat or kitten, whether it be to The Arsenal, or her own foster space, and giving them all the love (and churu) their hearts need in order to be ready for their next adventure.

Nicole is so dedicated to her work for Philadelphia cats she has even begun her own rescue, House Of The Cat , who began tagging TCC cats as quickly as the ink had dried on their 501(c)3. We are so excited to see Nicole take on some new tasks and embrace this leadership role. Please join us in congratulating her and make sure you don't miss her Cheek of the Week posts!

01/06/2025

With all of the announcements of changes in leadership, we are excited to *formally* introduce the new Executive Director of TCC, Hilary Coulter !

Hilary has been with TCC since its early days and is a prime example of everything we value in someone who represents us. She is extremely hard working, strategic, kind, selfless, knowledgeable, & always willing to go the extra mile for a cat in need of her help, even at the highest inconvenience to herself.
Most importantly, Hilary sees every cat as an individual and not just a number, which is what our entire organization bases our core values on - the cats as individuals. She’s never afraid of a challenge and is always the first to step up with an idea to problem solve.

We are excited to see how TCC continues to grow and develop under Hilary’s leadership. She brings so much to the table and we know our organization is in amazing hands! 🧡

01/04/2025

The second significant change as we enter 2025 is that our amazing & selfless Director of Operations, Shauna Alvarez Frye , is also stepping down from her role at TCC. She has spent every single day of the last three years dedicating herself unconditionally to the cats of Philadelphia and is ready to pursue some new and exciting endeavors on her own with her rescue Philadelphia Urgent Rescue & Relief, Inc - PURR while also remaining a strong rescue partner for the cats of TCC!

Shauna formulated the original vision for TCC along with our founders and was instrumental in creating every aspect of the organization from the ground up. From day one she has dedicated almost all of her time to ensure that TCC is set up to be successful long after her departure and for that we can never thank her enough.

Shauna has such a strong passion for cats (and all animals!) and has always led by example in doing right by every single cat that she encounters no matter the cost or emotional toll it would take on her. She has imparted this approach amongst everyone who works closely with her and it will continue to be the guiding principle for all of the staff and volunteers at TCC.

TCC would have never become the exceptional and successful organization that it is without her enthusiasm and dedication. Her departure is bittersweet. Bitter for all of the staff and volunteers who love her and would honestly never feel ready to see her go but also sweet because after everything she’s done to ensure our success, we now get to try our best to make her proud while watching her excitedly pursue her next big adventure!

Shauna, thank you for everything that you’ve done over the last three years, not only for the cats, but for the people you’ve also helped. You’ve done things for the cat crisis in Philadelphia that most involved in animal welfare never thought were possible. Thousands of cats are in better situations because of you and you are a true example of what it means to be a rescuer. We wish you nothing but the absolute best ❤️

01/03/2025

With the new year comes some bittersweet changes we are ready to announce!

The first major change is that our Executive Director, JJ Francis , is moving on and pursuing some exciting new adventures outside of the cat world!

JJ has been with us since day one when we began back in 2022 and played an integral role in the formation of TCC. He always found ways for us to move at warp speed and helped develop TCC into the elaborate organization that exists today. Any time a new opportunity arose that we didn't think was in our realm of possibilities, JJ found a way to make it happen seamlessly. Whether it was sourcing more funding for TNR, establishing our pet clinic, building partnerships with other organizations, or even building our Arsenal based facility from scratch, JJ was always up for every challenge.

We are beyond grateful for all of his efforts towards our mission & truly cannot thank him enough for all he has done to get us where we are today. We wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors!

01/01/2025

Happy New Year! 🎉

With 2024 coming to a close and as we prepare to jump in to 2025, we want to take a minute to reflect on our year's worth of work and highlight some of the statistics that make us very proud!

In 2024 our amazing team responded to an impressive 5,032 cats and kittens in the form of help requests from the community, areas discovered by our own team in need of help, our pet clinic, and relationships with community caretakers who reach out for help as it is needed.

Our team of trappers have already begun their 2025 trapping and our pet clinic continues to make a huge impact on the community as we diligently do our best to work our way through our waitlist.

We are eager & motivated to start another year of life saving and see what impressive feats our volunteer trappers will pull off! 🧡

12/30/2024

A big thank you to one of our rescue partners Familiar Hearts Animal Society run by Aminda Edgar for donating these carriers to us! In addition to Aminda's generosity we also were given carriers from Lili Sharpless !

We use these carriers to help pet owners using our free spay/neutered clinic, who do not have a carrier, or do not have a reliable/safe carrier. There is a lot that goes into making sure we can help everyone who cares for their cat enough to make an appointment with us and we do everything we can to help avoid barriers keeping them from accessing the service.

Currently we are fixing a minimum of 140 pets per month and hope to eventually expand this number as we are constantly humbled by the level of demand! Thank you to everyone who has helped build this program and helped it succeed!

12/26/2024

We try to keep all of our focus strictly on cats but our dedicated volunteers can never turn a blind eye to any animal in distress!

One of our amazing trappers Zuzu was doing a transport for some of our cats today when she spotted this big guy injured and in need of help.

Without hesitation she stepped into action. Knowing not to use her bare hands, she used her own coat to contain him in the cold 🥶 He didn’t want to let go of the coat so into the carrier he went along with her coat, wallet, drivers license, & credit cards 💳

They took a nice chilly ride together in her car to a wildlife refuge where this stunning creature will get the qualified care he needs to heal and Zuzu was able to safely retrieve her belongings back 😬

Thank you Zuzu for always going so far above and beyond for not just every single cat you encounter, but every animal in need that you cross paths with! 🧡

12/22/2024

Took Small Steps!










❤️❤️❤️

12/20/2024

We had two wonderful shelter building events this season where we were able to assemble an amazing 195 shelters!

We want to first and foremost thank our awesome volunteers including some of our core trappers who took time out of their weekend to come help! Our work would not be possible without our amazing team!

We would also like to thank Trisha Bowe, Karen Vuillermet, and Vincent Herbe for donating the supplies from our wishlist as well as everyone who made a monetary donation! We would have never been able to make as many as we did this year without your generosity.

We understand the drastic need for warm, cozy, & properly insulated houses to help the cats living on the street survive the winter ❄️🥶 and our hope is that every year we will be able to make more!

Please keep an eye out for our wishlist of items for the shelters throughout the year and sign up announcements for volunteers to come and help out on the day of the event!

12/14/2024

Update: I'm sorry all but we have run through what we had to give away at this time. We may have more coming soon. We will update if we do.

We just completed a wildly successful shelter build and now we need to get all of thse shelters out to the kitties in need! Shelters will be available on our loading dock, free of charge, on a first come first serve basis!
Our address:
The Arsenal
5401Tacony Street Building 209
Philadelphia, PA 19137

Tell the security you're here for The Cat Collaborative and they will direct you to our building in the complex.

12/11/2024

While our work is generally done through trapping & our pet clinic - last week one of our volunteers encountered a situation that really needed our immediate help!

One of our volunteers was on her run when she encountered a man who had seen someone toss out a duct taped box and drive away - the man seemed confused on what to do and told Linda that sealed up box contained a cat 💔

To her horror (and all of ours), the box taped shut and tossed out into the frigid cold, did in fact have a cat in it 🥲

Linda called our director & clinic manager and was able to get the cat right to our arsenal facility for a quick evaluation! Fortunately she hadn’t been outside long enough to feel the effects of the temperatures but she was understandably traumatized and so hungry 🥺

We were able to get her into our clinic for her full vetting the next day so she is now spayed & vaccinated! Her body condition was poor but we do think she is pretty young. She’ll eventually be looking for placement and a home but right now she is decompressing about main facility learning to trust people again.

We named her Julia and we are so glad that things seemed to be a very right place right time instance and she is now safe 🧡 We don’t know why she was left on a trail instead of taken to the shelter but we are so relieved we were able to help her before it was too late.

The cat crisis in Philadelphia seems endless but we’re hoping as we continue our work that there won’t be as many or any Julia’s being left behind!

12/03/2024

It’s and we need your help to continue to give the gift of warm shelter to the homeless cats of Philadelphia during these upcoming frigid winter months 🥶

On 11/16 we had part 1 of our shelter building workshop & and we are hosting part 2 on 12/14!

We cannot stress the importance of properly made & properly insulated shelters. When made correctly, these shelters can be the difference of surviving another winter or not for these cats which is why we host workshops to not only teach the community how to make them, but to make as many as we possibly can for our city’s kitties!

We’d like to thank our sponsors who supplied items for part one:

▪️Thank you Denise for the Reflectix!

▪️Thank you Pat & Sandy for tarps & 3M supplies!

▪️Thank you Carol Mahoney for the styrofoam!

▪️Thank you to every volunteer who showed up to make it a success!

For part 2, we could really use some support with some basic supplies & funding to make this happen! Our goal is to make or exceed 200 shelters ‼️

We have added an Amazon wishlist below ⬇️ as well as a donate button! No amount is too small and every dollar helps feral cats live better lives! 🫶🏻

https://a.co/9Qlw1bP

11/27/2024

One thing we cannot stress enough is never leaving a Mama cat behind! Whether she’s friendly or feral, she deserves to live a happier & safer life without continuing the cycle of producing litters!

Two of our amazing trappers, Pat & Sandy, had been trying to get this mom cat for quite some time. They tried every trick in the book but had been striking out. Around 4 weeks ago she had another litter and they had been actively trying to trap her and get her babies to safety especially with the cold weather coming in.

The property owner had been keeping an eye out to help them and noticed mom had brought her babies to the yard and then left. They waited and waited until it was clear these kittens needed to be fed and decided to feed the babies and use them as bait - STILL no luck but they weren’t going to give up!

It was decided as a very short term solution to bring the kittens to our clinic team at our main facility yesterday for feeding & care so they could focus solely on getting her. Our clinic manager had planned as a last minute solution to overnight them but just after 5pm we got the call that after weeks and weeks MOM WAS IN THE TRAP!

We gave them one more quick feeding so that she had time to simmer down and settle in but by last night she was reunited with her babies! ❤️

Mom is feral so once they are weaned she will be fully vetted (spayed, vaccinated, & flea treated) and released to her familiar area and her babies will move along to rescue.

It would have been easy to take the kittens and call it a day but that’s not what we believe in. Even though mom is not placeable, she is now free from the risk of getting pregnant, delivery complications, pyometra, & going into heat which means the males would have continued to stalk her. She also isn’t stuck outside somewhere full of milk risking complications from that. Not to mention, kittens ALWAYS have a better chance at a healthier life by being with their mother and nursing. Bottle feeding is a great skill to learn for true emergencies but should always be the absolute last resort if mom truly can’t or won’t nurse.

Thank you Pat & Sandy for being so persistent & doing right by this entire family!! ❤️