Friday, November 19, 2010

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.


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]


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.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

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

Sunday, November 14, 2010

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.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

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.