Naperville Area Humane Society: Cat Enrichment Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
The money was used for a variety of supplies that help enrich the lives of our shelter cats while they wait for their forever homes. By purchasing supplies to make homemade enrichment items, we have been able to create so much more than if we were to buy each item pre-made. Also, the bubble machine that we purchased has provided enrichment for our adult-cat room (as well as the volunteers who use the machine during their visits!). We also ended up providing enrichment for our cats while making the enrichment items. Volunteers have been taking the supplies into the cat rooms and assembling the enrichment items in front of the cats. The cats have taken that as playtime and seem to quite enjoy having the company as well as the live entertainment of people who are making cat toys for them.
This grant allowed us to purchase supplies that we use for daily cat enrichment. Many of the supplies have also been used and integrated into our humane-education lessons. Children who come in for classes and camps have a day dedicated to cat enrichment, where they make a variety of enrichment items for our shelter cats. The children love to make a bulk number of items that we keep and provide for volunteers to use on their visits. After our Facebook post that thanked the Petfinder Foundation for this grant, we had a volunteer become so inspired to help grow our cat enrichment program that she donated a television to the adult-cat room. We stream the cat channel on YouTube on that TV for our cats’ part of each day. It is because of this grant announcement that we have been able to provide more than we set out to for daily cat enrichment.
How many pets did this grant help?
This grant will help 400 cats per year and about 40 cats per month.
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
This grant has allowed us to purchase a cat fountain for our feline friends who really enjoy the water. We have one resident, Sim Sim, who has been here for a few months and loves water. The staff would periodically bring Sim Sim up to the lobby so he could drink from and play with the water in the bathroom sink. The first photo shows Sim Sim drinking from the sink, and now I am happy to report he will be enjoying his new cat fountain. Meet him: www.petfinder.com/petdetail/39995070
