Secure Sister Seraphim’s Legacy
Save the date: October 3, 2025, from 5-8 pm at the Savoy Opera House in Trail Dust Town for our 60th Birthday Bash!
After setting the party date, we wondered if there was a way to honor Sister Seraphim and 60 years of saving at-risk cats. Then the skylights in the general population catio started leaking. We moved into the building in October of 2017, so it is almost 8 years old. And starting to show its age. We replaced the AC unit in the isolation building last year. One of our 3 main AC units gave out this summer. We had to replace the dishwasher in the medical department. We have a line item in our budget for building maintenance, but these were above and beyond normal building wear and tear.
We felt expanding Sister Seraphim’s work would be a purrfect way to honor our 60th year. We decided to focus on three areas: building; medical staff; and our pet pantry.
BUILDING ($250,000 total):
There are a few cats in our allergy room who suffer from environmental allergens – much like hay fever. The original remodel included a catio for them but now it’s become a health drawback, so we want to completely enclose that area. Our vision is to create a room like our main kitten room, with a half wall topped by windows. The room would also house cats not yet fully clear from medical who just need a more contained space to recuperate.
The Remembrance Garden, once a peaceful space, looks forlorn. We completed the “terrace” in the back with 5 hardscaped areas and a ramada so we could hold more events and expand our annual craft fair. The goal is to offer a place for our community to host birthday parties or even weddings. We’d also like to offer a night market on par with our craft fair (which has grown every year)! These events allow us to generate income but most importantly they introduce the lifesaving work we do to entirely different audiences.
We feel $250,000 would be sufficient to enclose the allergy room, improve both the Remembrance Garden and terrace, have available funds to make necessary repairs to the building for the next 3-5 years AND hire a full-time maintenance person, allowing us to make minor repairs and ongoing maintenance while keeping labor costs down.
MEDICAL STAFF ($430,000 total)
Back to our onsite cats. We have more cats onsite because we have taken in more kittens than ever before. We have one part time veterinarian and simply can’t keep up with the spay/neuters, so kittens end up staying in our medical unit (or if we’re lucky, with fosters), far longer than we’d like. Hiring a full-time veterinarian would allow us to have kittens spayed/neutered and into the kitten room quicker. Eventually, we’d be able to offer low cost spay/neuter and general medical care to community cats and community members. This would generate funds, but it also allows us to qualify for more animal welfare grant opportunities. To support a full-time veterinarian, we’d need an additional Certified Vet Tech and vet assistant.
PET PANTRY ($65,000 total)
Times are tough, and the Michael Cannon Community Pet Food Pantry continues to serve more people each year. A pet pantry allows people who can’t afford pet food and cat litter to keep their companion animal. Every animal we keep out of already overwhelmed shelters (Hermitage included) is one more animal kept safe.
Currently our pet pantry is only open on the 3rd Thursday of each month. We have a wonderful volunteer who runs it and she’s unable to do more. The cost of everything is increasing, pet food included, and we don’t see it getting easier, so we’d like to open our pet pantry on a weekly basis. To do that, we need a full-time pantry manager to source the food, pick up food, and hand out the food.
We feel these areas of building maintenance and mission expansion directly align to Sister Seraphim’s original mission to save and serve more cats. The total cost to implement the entire vision is $750,000. Our current annual budget of $1,000,000 will adjust upwards approximately $300,000 beginning in year 3 for a total annual budget of $1,300,000.
Donate to our growth campaign and help us secure the legacy of Sister Seraphim's love for animals. YOU can make a difference in the lives of cats for another 60 years and beyond!
