To the editor:
The Halfway Home Pet Rescue was blessed to receive $34,000 from the Elmina Sewall Foundation and $10,000 from the Maine Community Foundation in 2019, all to be used for low-cost spaying and neutering for cats belonging to low-income families. Our clinics serve people from Central Aroostook to the St. John Valley, and we are continually booking appointments both for Caribou and Fort Kent vet clinics. Halfway Home Rescue spayed or neutered over 500 cats in 2019.
Let’s keep this program a strong and active part of our mission. We can do this. The results are already showing, and the appreciation from the local families involved shows that it is only the high vet medical costs in The County that keep them from doing the surgery. Some need to choose between human medical and feline surgery, some say the kids needed winter boots, some say the money is actually needed for groceries. These are real cases.
If Halfway Home can continue sterilizing these cats as well as community cats, we can lighten our load of kittens coming in this spring. The key is to continue sterilizing until we have done as well as the Portland area, where they request cats and kittens from us because they have many empty spaces.
Let’s keep sterilizing and actually someday put ourselves out of business.
To receive a low-cost, low-income spay/neuter application, email me at norma@halfwayhomepetrescue.org. The co-pay is only $25 per cat and we pay the balance of the medical work. In the email message please include your name, address, telephone number, the cat’s name, sex and age and your email address.
The clinics provides spay/neuter surgery, distemper, rabies and Revolution treatment, and microchipping for the $25. The microchip option needs to have the owner’s email address.
The clinics of Feb. 12, Feb. 19 and Feb. 26 are fully booked, and we are now booking fast for the March 4, March 18 and April 1 clinics.
Halfway Home Pet Rescue will be scheduling Caribou Clinics later this spring for April, May and June as well as more at the Fort Kent Clinic. It is important to get your name on the waiting list. You will be called as soon as the clinic space becomes available.
Don’t wait — the spaces fill up fast. If the $25 is a problem, send in the application anyway as I can sometimes find a sponsor for the family.
Norma Milton, director, Halfway Home Pet Rescue
Caribou
