Nine Lives Project

12/31 UPDATE: The kittens are ready to be spayed/neutered and are getting their second round of vaccines, which means they're available for adoption and can go home just as soon as we get them altered! Jenica and Tabitha are spoken for, but Big Man Chad, Brad, and Brittany still need homes: maybe with you, or with someone you know?

12/3 UPDATE: The fun continues.....the kittens are doing well for the most part, but they do have some nasty ringworm that appeared out of nowhere. Because it can take a while to take action, their symptoms only just started appearing a week ago. They were so kind to snuggle Karley enough to share it, even!

11/12 UPDATE: Heartbreakingly, we have lost four of the kittens to unknown causes. However, by rushing Polly to the emergency vet, we were given some amoxicillin to give to the batch to see if they were fighting an infection, and the changes have been astounding. All five have big appetites, eat on their own, and want to play all the time. We are hopeful that we've turned a corner and are so grateful for the initial support this fundraiser got so we had the cushion to afford all of the care the kittens have needed.

The remaining kittens are Brad, Chad, Brittney, Jenica, and Tabitha. Polly, Jaxson, Holly, and Jason are still in our hearts, and we miss them dearly.

If you can, please share this fundraiser with those you know.

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11/6 UPDATE: We have raised the goal of this fundraiser due to the kittens' sudden downturn in health, which has made it clear that our team needs to get our hands on an incubator. We're hoping to be able to purchase this incubator (https://a.co/d/hWrM2xv), which is recommended by The Kitten Lady, our go-to source for knowledge when caring for these vulnerable kittens. Even if we can't get this incubator, we know more vet bills are coming in soon. We'll share all invoices with you for full transparency; anything you can give to help us cover these costs is deeply appreciated.

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On October 24, three exhausted volunteers arrived at the animal shelter at which they volunteer. They needed to do evening rounds: scooping litter boxes, giving medication to cats with colds and diarrhea, and making sure every one of the almost 30 cats at the shelter had food, water, and some face time with a person who loves them.

That same day, they had rushed a batch of kittens from their foster home to a vet, where two of them were ultimately lost.

This has been woefully common this year. Kittens are so vulnerable to illness, and when they start to turn, it can be very fast - and very hard to bring them back. Collectively, the team has lost over a dozen kittens in the past two months. Each death hits deep.

So, exhausted both physically and emotionally, one of the volunteers brought a bag of scooped litter to the trash outside - and then she heard a chorus of tiny meows.

From a closed Tupperware container on the ground. Outside. Next to the trash.

No note. No call. No food in the container. Just nine 3-4 week old kittens, left there alone on the night of the first snow of this season.

Nine currently healthy, beautiful, playful, affectionate kittens, who were rushed into a foster home with the volunteer who found them. The team rallied to get them fed, cleaned up, checked on, and through their first night. All of them are still healthy, beautiful, playful, affectionate - and now that the emergency is fading to the background of so many other days like it, we have to figure out how to care for them.

They'll need to be spayed/neutered, so $500 of this will cover that for them. We have access to a low-cost program, thankfully! The other $500 will go to vaccines and microchips. This is only the beginning, the baseline of healthcare that we need to offer them... and we need your help. Nine unexpected cats is a lot for our small, tired team, but we're here for them.

No kitten is trash. Each one is a life, and we're going to give our all to save them all. Can you help Karley, Hannah, Rachel, and me to do that?