Why We Ask For Help ?

The question of the day is "Why Do We Ask For Help " The simplest answer is we could never take care of the kitties under our care without you.

If I ever stopped asking for help for the kitties, without funds we will have to close.
And most of the kitties will be euthanized because they are Special Needs kitties and unadoptable.

Than everyone will say " Why did you not ask for help? " And if I said " I did not want to bother you all " You will say 'Rick What Are You crazy ?  How could you let this happen. We would have helped but you did not ask us.

So I will never let this happen as long as I have a mouth and fingers to type. I will always ask for help for the kitties.

The kitties know in their hearts if you can help you do and if not they understand.

We are so grateful that the kitties have friends around the world to help the kitties out when they need it. 

And for this we will always be grateful.

A Social Media High Tech Beggar

A Social Media High Tech Beggar  - The drama of running Puffy Paws is unbelievable. All we are doing is taking care of Special Needs & Unwanted kitties that would have been destroyed at a typical shelter.

We are not rich people. The kitties lives depend  upon the kindness of kitty lovers through out the World. This message hurts. I’m doing everything I can do to try to be self supported through our other endeavors but we need help and we thank God for people who understand. This is the message I just got from our contact page on our Web site.

Since she did not leave any contact information, my reply follows hers.

She wrote:


“ I am on your Facebook entry and would like to be removed. I CANNOT
 abide your begging every day for money! Please remove me immediately.
 Thank you,”

My responses If you are on our facebook and wish to be removed. I have no control to do that. You must read the facebook FAQ and find out how to do this.

If you are on our email list their is a unsubscribe button at the button of the page.
Just click on it and you will be removed. I’m sorry you feel this way in how we raise funds to take care of the unwanted  & Special Need kitties under our care.

We do not get paid and  folks who donate their hard earn donation dollars are spent on the kitties care and the operation of Puffy Paws. We have been able to do what we do for the kitties only by asking for help. Because of kitty lovers through out the World the kitties at Puffy Paws are safe and alive.

Please check out the video that was in the NEW YORK POST ,below to be understand what we do.

PS:  I will never stop “Begging” for money when it comes to the kitties. You may call me “ A Social Media High Tech Beggar ” if you would like.


Rick Kingston

Festivus - " Airing of Grievances"

Have you ever got overwhelmed that you do not know were to start ? Well I feel that way these days. Frustrated that I can not do more than I do on a daily basics for the kitties.

The Thrift Shop is taking so much of my time these days. It's all good but when it comes to the end of the day I'm exhausted. In order to have a good day at the Shop everything must come out in the dollar bins. That takes around a hour plus. Than everything must come back in at night.

I'm getting depressed because we are in need of used computers so we may start live streaming the kitties, start production of our "Reality TV Show", put items on ebay, etc....

All of this is crucial in raising funds and awareness about the kitties. Our survival in 2011 depends upon taking Puffy Paws to the next level.

It's sad in 2010 that we reached out to many national talk shows and National media outlets to no avail. It seems the media is more incline to report who Kim Kardashian and her sisters ,are sleeping with and what they are wearing these days than the kitties.

Locally lots of folks complain that they are employed and can not find a job.

I tell them I have a job  for you but it  is on commission, raising funds over the phones and you can start ASAP.

They can either ask for donations from residential homes or sell full color business cards to business.

But as soon as the hear the commission word they would rather sit around and do nothing than work the phones and raise the kitties money and get a paycheck while doing it.

I was a professional telemarketer fund raiser and worked on commission for years.

I have the skills and training to run a great phone room but with no people we are dead in the water.

We have raised thousands of dollars over the phones though out the years but the phones do not raise funds by them selves we need people who are willing to take a chance and work on commission by selling full color business cards or asking for donations.

We need help in many areas other than at the Haven but people come and go around us. It always end up back to Chrissy and I doing the work.

The strength to continue on is hard. Chrissy is tried and so am I. But everyday we do it.
God leads us when we are weary.

We are thankful for all the support World wide. With out you all we can not do what we do.

The daily struggle is hard. We gave up our lives to take care of these kitties that no one wanted.

We see other animal groups hide behind lies and deceit locally. Enjoying the full support of the Community we live in.

I do not understand it at all. High kill shelters and other groups which very little is spent on the handful of animals under their care.

I have all the facts and figures to back up these statements but no one cares because of their PR machines that the local media supports by putting out fluff stories on a regular basics.

For us because of  standing up for what is right and ethical we are almost blacklisted with the powers to be because its who you know in this town.

Why is it that the backbone of Puffy Paws is harden criminals from the courts doing Community Service ?
It's funny when I say our  " Thrift Shop Is a Daycare For Felons".

These folks help the kitties more than the good righteous so called animal rescuers in the area.

Our felons never spread hurtful gossip and rumors but the good small minded folks in this Community do.
It's amazing the false stories I hear and where it comes from.

Fact is that these folks are quick to tell a false tale and when you confront them on it they get a tight upper lip.It is amazing to watch them squirm and back track on their fables

We have put back hundreds of thousands of dollars in the local community alone since 1997  and these stores we spend your hard earned donations dollars treat us like gum on their shoes.

Can you tell me why the the GM of the Englewood Walmart never once has said "Hello" to me in two years and we make eyes contact everyday while he passes our Thrift Shop. We have spent well over 75.000 dollars in his store I tell you why " He does not care" ! That is plain and simple as it gets.

O yeah  ! This is the same guy who  gave us the boot from the broken bag program . For years we used to get all the broken bags of cat litter and cat food and than he decided to give it all to Sun Coast Humane Society and this is the same guy who refused to keep our cat food in stock. Silly me ! Why would I think he would care.

Everyone tells me "Rick Shut Your Mouth" in the way this small town of Englewood operates.

We take care of the most cats in a no-kill environment. We do not get paid.

Believe you me I'm not their favorite son cause I stand up for myself and what is right.

Does any one remember Underground TV ? A little TV show I used to produced.
That reached over 250,000 homes in Upstate NY back in the early Nineties.

We now have all new video cameras and equipment and we need volunteers for production and a computer for editing. 

I promise to shut my mouth for now but when the cameras are rolling the truth will be known and the World is mine and the kitties stage.

Thank for listening.

Rick

Sending Out The "Cat Signal" - Superheros to the rescue.

For those of you who  like to know what happens when times get tough and we need help ASAP over here at The World’s Great Cathouse.

We send out the “ Cat Signal ”.

This is how it works.

We send out the Cat Signal to our donors on our emailing list and now our facebook, Care2, Twitter & Animal Connection fans by posting it on our walls.

For anyone who would like to receive our E-Newsletter and critical updates please sign up for our E-Newsletter below.

http://www.puffypawskittyhaven.com/id341.html

This is a crucial  part of Puffy Paws Kitty Haven fund raising endeavors.

Without this we would not be able to raise the funds needed for the operation of Puffy Paws Kitty Haven.

We have very kind heart donors on our list who,so far this year they have donated well over 50,000 dollars.

These generous cat lovers have gave to the kitties, time and time again just by us asking for help when we needed it.

We feel guilty in asking so much over the past year but are so grateful we have this options when times are tough.

The E mailing list and our facebook page is like when Commissioner Gordon needs help from the Batman and he sends out the Bat Signal in the nighttime sky.

Well. Our list and now our social media,  is "Our Cat Signal ' and the folks who are on it have never let the kitties down.

When we light the skies with it, we are very careful when we use it. But when we do it means one thing

" Kitties Needs You “ .

Chrissy and I are trying to be self supported in our other fund raising endeavors but we have fallen short many times and this is when we activate the "Cat Signal "

We are very blessed to receive such support from all over the World and we thank you for the bottom of all the kitties hearts.

Their are many kitty lovers from all the World on the list. Let me tell you about some of them.

As I been saying all along Bloggers are a key in the survival of Puffy Paws.

The “Wreckies” from the internationally famous blog Cake Wrecks, When Professional Cakes Go Horribly Hilariously Wrong, have donated tens of thousands of dollars to the kitties in less than a year span. Just by being on the  list.

Jen Yates is the creator of the blog Cake Wrecks,When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong,  found at  http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com.

Jen has been a clown, a cash office accountant, a Jungle Cruise skipper, a business owner, a children's book inventory expeditor, and a house painter. She currently lives in Florida with her husband, John, and their two cats. Despite the daily cake carnage she chronicles, she really does like cake.

Jen and John has gone beyond the call of duty in alerting her readers when the kitties need our help.

Last year Jen did a Christmas fund raiser for the kitties and over 10,000 dollars came in
from the ‘Wreckies”.

What is more astounding is these Cake & Cat lovers double that huge amount through out the year, just by us asking when we needed help by sending out “ The Cat Signal “

Please support Jen by becoming a reader of blog, Cake Wrecks.

Jen has a New York Times best selling book out : Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong [Hardcover]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0740785370?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwcakewreckc-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0740785370

Jen’s book makes a great Christmas present and is great way in giving back to Jen for giving the gift of life to all the kitties at Puffy Paws.

My God bless all of you today for giving to all the unwanted and special need kitties at Puffy Paws, with out you we are nothing.

Thank You. For Your Donation

We thank you very much for your donation. With out you their will be no Puffy Paws Kitty Haven.

Every time you donate you are giving the gift of life for the kitties.

Please accept this as our personal thank you at this time.

We are very sorry at this time as it is almost impossible to send out a personal thank you to each and ever donor. It is basically my wife and I running the daily operation of Puffy Paws Kitty Haven.

Let me fill you in on the details.

The very sad fact of the matter is that it's has been my wife and I taking care of the kitties by ourselves for a very long time.

On May 1st, 2011. The Englewood Sun Herald published a letter to the Editor in which I wrote begging for help from our community.

_______________________________________________________________

Editor

My wife and I are only two people running Englewood, Florida's "World's Greatest Cathouse." Puffy Paws Kitty Haven is a 501(c) (3) non-profit, no-kill cat hospice & rescue specializing in providing quality and loving care to special needs cats; we have 100 adoptable kitties that need homes.

Our current help consists of a few volunteers and the court ordered Community Service Personnel. These people are folks who got into trouble and are trying to pay their debts to society.

We have been begging this community for help for years with adoptions , PR, and fund-raising events.

We finally have a handful of volunteers who put on a monthly adoption event but that is not enough; we need more people.

While the Humane Society and other rescue groups in the area enjoy paid employees and a host of volunteers, we do not.

We do not get paid; 100% of all donation goes to the kitties and the operating expenses. Are books are open to the public.

It Cost Over $11,000 a month to run Puffy Paws Kitty Haven.

Operating Expenses
http://www.puffypawskittyhaven.com/id353.html

In 2012 I raised $144,000 by myself, just by asking for help and $125,000 of that came from kitty lovers from around the world donating through PayPal.&  Network for Good.

The very sad reality is that the only ones who suffered were the community cats that we could not help because we could not take them in and find homes.

You can change all of this by volunteering your time.
For more information call 941-623-8904 or go to our website.

Rick Kingston
Co-Founder
Puffy Paws Kitty Haven

____________________________________________________________ 

My wife and I takes care of the special need & unwanted kitties together.

We still have to work 15  hours day because Sarasota Code Enforcement banned all traffic at the Haven.

CLICK  HERE - To Read The Story As Seen In The Englewod Edge

Chrissy and I hauls  in 360 pounds of cat litter in the Haven daily & takes it back out. We wash over 20 cat litter boxes daily. Every four hours the kitties are feed at 10 feeding stations, We vacuum & mop and dust daily. Chrissy  gives out meds. We groom the kitties. We tends to the sick ones. She runs to the Vet and the store for supplies too. We put on a 'Live' show on USTREAM  every Sunday @ 10pm to get the adoptable kitties home. We do this this day in and day out. She does the work of a paid staff of 10.

My job is to raise the $225 dollars a day to take care of the kitties daily needs, plus the operating expensive of $3,00 a month, and vet care of $2,000 a month , every single day.

On most days I work up to 15 hours a day to accomplish this.

In addition to helping Chrissy with the kitties. I run the Collectable Shop. I raise funds on-line. I run to the Vet.. I'm our Web Master. I do all the graphic art work. I update on fb everyday. I pick up the kitties daily supplies in the evening. I pay the bills. I put out the SOS's for help.I put out all the fires that pop out daily. I'm my wife's venting post. I'm the fixer.

I’m in a fight for the kitties lives. If I fail at raising the funds needed to take care of the 200 kitties under our care there will be no other option but to close down. What choice would we have ?

A whole Cat Hospice will be wiped out and only painful and sad stories will be told because I could not round up the World Wide awareness and financial help these beautiful cats deserve.

It’s not fair but life is not.

When people  want to volunteer and find out that they can not help with the kitties at the Haven because of the ban,  they do not want to help out in other areas and move on but we do need folks to help us with the thank you letters and emails. But it is not happening right now.

My wife and I do not get paid in what we do
.
100%  of all donations goes right to operating Puffy Paws Kitty Haven.

We have improvised., adapted and overcame these human obsoletes by telling the truth of our situation.

This is why we had to take our story Nation Wide a few years back and now World Wide

With out  your support we could not do what we do and we will always be eternally grateful.

When we received a donation on-line  it is my job to safe guard all the personal information that is sent.

Puffy Paws Kitty Haven does not store, nor does it have access to, your credit card information, bank account numbers, or other account data sent through Pay Pal.

So the burden falls on me. This is very time consuming in sending out  a personal thank you for  each donations received. It evolves many hours in gathering the emails from Pay Pal to send out a personal thank you.

I have a tremendous amount of  guilt every single day because I do not have the time to send out a personal thank you for each donation received because I’m trying to keep the doors open.

And for this I'm sorry.

One day I will get help in other areas so I may send out personal a 'Thank You".

But until that day comes , please know that we appreciated and are very grateful for every single donation that you send in to help the kitties.

We can not do it with out you.

Sadly enough time is my enemy.

I only have certain amount of time to raise the funds daily to keep the doors open at Puffy Paws and I hate this fact.

I pray for your understanding and forgiveness if I offended  any one.

Rick Kingston

Paws Prints In The Heart

Being a Cat Hospice it is always hard when one of our kitties is called to cross over the Rainbow Bridge.

Tears are shed. Emotions run high. Their little souls leave their bodies and when you look at their body that once contain them your realize that they are gone forever from this planet.

They may be gone from this planet but these special kitties that we all called our children with fur ,will always live in our hearts forever.

Their love remands in our hearts so we may share it on to the next kitty that comes into our care.

Bummpey was a kitten that was born at the house with his mother coming in pregnant. He was a sick little kitten and fought all odds to hang on to life that he so much enjoyed.

He was with us for years being taken to the Vet regularly. Thousands was spent on him and he lived for another 6 years.

One day he fell ill.After everything thing that was done medically possible to save him. I kissed him and told him it was OK to let go, and told him we love you and go be with our brother and sisters over the Rainbow bridge.

I left the room to go outside. As I was outside, a shooting star fell from the sky. That moment I knew Bumppey pasted away.

Latter on I had to wash my little Bumppey to prepare him for burial. He was limp in my hands and tears were flowing. We buried him with his favorite blanket and toys.

Our little Bumpster crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

Tears still fill my eyes when I think of him and all that past before and after him, till this day.

It’s never easy. The joy they bring us in life is always meet with sorrow it death.

There is no easy words for those of you who lost your best friend.

If you want to see your beloved pet look into your heart and you will find their paw print of love which will always be their until you meet again over the Rainbow Bridge.

HALT - Hungry, Angry Lonely & Tried

Chrissy is exhausted from her grueling schedule and I’m tried. there is a old saying

“ HALT ”- Hungry, Angry Lonely & Tried “.

I never woke up one day and said ”Cats now that’s were the money is.

Sometimes I never understand why our bread always falls the butter side down.

We are good people.

We have dedicated our lives to take care of these unwanted kitties in under our care.

100% of all donations goes to the kitties.

We have taken in so many kitties that other rescues refused to take because if we did not their fate would have been death,

We wonder why life is not fair but that is the fact of life.

Here is a personal insight in what we faced and are facing in trying to save these beautiful cats under our care.

The truth is not a pretty one buy it will set you free.


Hungry & Angry

A while back a Puffy Paws Kitty Haven supporter was telling the difference between us and the “ Media Darling of Rescues In This Town” to one of their supporters who was trying to get him to drop his support for us and come on over to their side.

He said ‘ You group excelled in fund raising because you have the support of the local newspaper because one of your board members maintains an executive position at the newspaper itself.

Do you really think its fair that as a foster based program, in which you only take care of a handful of animals, you hides behind the saying “It’s For The Animal “ but one government report after another shows, that the majority of the donations you get goes to salaries , fundraising and management..

Not to the small amount of animals under your foster base care. One year you paid over 100,000 dollars to two paid staff members combined. But that is kept out of the local paper.

Last year only 35% of all donations sent to you was spent on the animals.

Than he wiped out a sheet of paper and said “Look at this” At least your numbers are up from previous years because this government report states .

“ The funds spend on the “animals” is extremely minimal”

2003 - $ 225 out of $31,263 = .71% of expenses
2004 - $ 505 out of $30,504 = 1.60% of expenses
2005 - $ 802 out of $26,955 = 2.20% of expenses

Than he said , Why is it The Kingston takes in the animals you refused to take over the years and your group takes in the community money and you broke that trust and spent it on yourself. And this is kept out of paper.

I do not think anyone in your organization will ever know what’s its like to go hungry . But I know one fact .The Kingston’s have gone hungry and the cats under their care never have.

These are the differences between your group and Puffy Paws and that’s why I will never give you my support.

Lonely & Tried

As you can image my wife and I relationship is put to the test each and everyday.

We seldom see each other. The time spent is brief and its between Chrissy scooping cat boxes ,cleaning and feeding the kitties.

The ban of having no help is destroying my wife. She has lost her life.

Her life is the kitties. Her unconditional love for them enables her to move ahead everyday.

It’s hard to accept the fact that the cats have to come over our marriage in order to maintain a clean,safe environment for them.

People have asked me “ Why do you stay” ?

Because even tho I do not have a traditional marriage to my wife were there is quality time spent together and all the perks and benefits one excepts in a marriage there is a deep bond of love for her deep in my soul.

She is my wife when I took my vows “For better or for Worst” I vowed I will live by them until the day we are no more.

I know I have many selfish faults but each day I try to become a better man and I’m not always successful. That is why I try to put her needs and the needs of the cats above my own selfish desires.

My heart is in pain for Chrissy, the way she works non stop, the powerlessness I feel because I can not seem to get any relieve for her daily drudgery.

The physical pain she endures on a daily basic with her rheumatoid arthritis and the 3 rupture discs in her back from 3 car wrecks , she was in when she was younger, brings to me to cry out to God and ask for mercy for her and I feel anger when none is given.

She is a frail woman with the inner strength of a 1,000 men.

I take the full blunt of her anger and resentment she feels for me, because I said . Yes when I should have said no in taking in the last 100 kitties under our care. I too have taken her life away.

I long for the days that we may become one and share and laugh and cuddle as a married couple. But those days may never come back.

I stay because the deep love I have for my wife which I cannot express in a traditional way and the love I have for the cats.

My daily actions speaks louder than my words. Because when I open up my mouth over my own personal anger and resentments, I hurts the one I love. I pray for God to hold my tongue so that I may not increase her burdens. But half the time it does not work.

We put the kitties first. They are helpless and we are their care givers. there are 268 hearts beats at stake here and that’s why we are one from afar.