Donate us cat food and litter via Pawfection's revamped site! Free delivery to our cattery

A visitor to our site recently alerted us that the footer link of our blog posts for donating food via Pawfection has an error page.

This should be the correct webpage to donate to Love Kuching Project via Pawfection at charity prices with free delivery to our cattery.

We will amend the links to our blog post footers from now on!

Become a monthly Cat Angel this December, and get an orangeTag pet tag!

This December, create a new standing instruction donation to us, of $50 or more, through your bank's online platform, and you get a free orangeTag pet tag that is electronic scanning enabled!

We are referring to this orangeTags pet tag:

Smart Tag, Smart Pet
Posted by Smart Phone Enabled Pet Tag on Monday, March 23, 2015

Even if your pet is microchipped, having this on his collar will help regular passers-by contact you, the owner, without having to bring it to SPCA or a vet clinic to scan for a chip and pay for microchip scanning services. Having an orangeTag pet tag is extra assurance that your pet, if in the unlikely chance she gets lost, someone can contact you easily via the tag.

Close up of the pet tag

The orangeTag pet tag is hung on your cat's collar

orangeTags has partnered with us during the month of December, that every new standing instruction set up to donate to our account, at an amount of $50 and more, you can receive a free orangeTag pet tag. There is only a $10 handling fee to input your pet's and your details in the tag before they can send it to you.

Get an orangeTag pet tag as a new monthly cat angel!

We are in serious need of monthly donations. To upkeep our work, based on FY2014 figures, we need about $8,500 per month to do our rescue, rehabilitation, rehoming, neutering and outreach work. Many cat angels have already stepped forward to donate monthly but we are still below target. Paying rental every month is a scary affair. Sometimes, when we see our out-of-stock list of items, it also worries us that we can only wait till more funds come in before we restock items, like supplements.

The man-hours spent fundraising per month equates to time taken away from actually caring for our beneficiaries, the cats. But with monthly donations via standing instructions by your bank to our corporate account, we spend fewer hours on fundraising and more on cat loving. We need more of you to become monthly cat angels.

If you are a POSB or DBS customer, click here if you do not know how to set up a monthly standing instruction to us. Our account is DBS current 027-905975-3.

After u set up the standing instruction, take a screenshot to confirm you are recurring a donation of $50 or more to our bank account number. Send this screenshot to Elaine elaine@lovekuchingproject.com and she will arrange for you to have your tag made and sent to you.

This campaign is for the month of December this year only, so do make your donations in time!

Thank you for helping us love the cats in our lives and neighbourhoods.

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection        

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Our Year-End Audacious Wishlist!

| Thank you cat angels |

We have been touched by many of you cat angels this year, thank you! For those of you who would like to give during the upcoming holiday season, here our year end wishlist items.

If there are any items in this list that you wish to buy for us, let us know! This way there will not be any double orders. Those items that you would like to either mail / courier to us or come in person with them, we will also give you our address. (We are a closed-admission shelter and visits are by appointment, so we cannot accept surprise drop offs of these gifts...)


Noticeboards
We have been shelving this overhead purchase in lieu of other expenses in boarding and veterinary needs. For now, we paste notices on the wall with scotch tape. We also lack a platform where we can communicate to guests a list of dos and don'ts when they visit.

We need 2 noticeboards, 60cm by 90cm, one in portrait orientation for internal announcements near the food prep area, another in landscape near the door so guests can read notices on it easily. The notice boards need to have a framed transparent door cover so that the roaming cats will not jump and tear at the notices, or be exposed to any sharp objects used to pin the notices.

Felt base, can be portrait or landscape

On this website Gaviton Events one noticeboard of the size we enquired is $178 per piece. This excludes delivery and installation at $30.

How to buy this for us: We will order the noticeboards and request that we pay them by a cheque or money order issued by you, while overseeing the delivery and installation of the noticeboards at our cattery. You can mail us the cheque or money order for the final amount we negotiate, or you can come and visit us when they install the noticeboards and pay them in person.



Scrub tops for our Foster Care Volunteers
Scrubs are useful outerwear tops that Foster Care Volunteers can wear to do their cat care work, without worry that they dirty their own clothes be it with physical stains, liquids or germs. We also want to get these scrub tops for them as a sense of identity because their work creates such high impact, so it is also a small form of volunteer appreciation.

Scrub top by RMF scrubs

We will add our Love Kuching Project logo to it as well. Delivery for 30 scrub tops to Singapore will be free of charge. The quotation they gave us is US$247.50 which is about $352.50. RMF scrubs are the cheapest scrubs available in the market by far. 

How to buy this for us: We can send you our logo and size requirements for the scrubs, while you email them with our order, and pay for the order using paypal or credit card. 



Young Living essential oils
Specifically, we are out of Purification blend, and Helichrysum. Purification is useful when there is a flea or mite or pest (ants, flies) situation in the cattery. It is also good for odour control in our air management when there are cats having diarrhoea; we can diffuse this in our water diffuster. Purification costs $40.79. Helichrysum is one of the three oils used for pain relief, something many of our shelter cats will benefit from. The three oils for pain relief in cats are Frankincense, Helichrysum and Copaiba. They can be diffused or made into a blend for topical use. They can also be consumed if the cat is okay with the taste. Helichrysum is $182.90 per 5ml bottle. 

Purification

Helichrysum

How to buy this for us: You can purchase Young Living essential oils through their website, or go to their office to buy in person. After procuring the oils you can send them to us or come and visit us with your gifts.







 
Pee Wee Litterbox with Hood
The roaming cats in the cattery share a hooded litterbox that is placed in our toilet right now. However, the clips that keep the hood intact with the base are broken, and have been for quite some time. Also, the door has long been lost. But the major thing is that because we use pine litter, it should be a litterbox that has a sieve bottom but our current one doesn't have it. We waste a lot of pine using this kind of litterbox. 

The ideal litterbox would be:

  PeeWee EcoHus

This fits our dimensions for the toilet area we set aside for the roaming cats' litterbox as well. 

How to get this for us: The PeeWee range of litterboxes can be found at many pet stores and you can approach your most convenient pet supplies vendor to get the EcoHus litterbox for us. You can either get our address via SMS and ask your pet supplies store to deliver it to us or come and visit with the gift in person. 



Microscope

3B Scientific Microscope

This is a microscope that can see oil immersion slides at minimum 40X. To a layman, this means that if we want to check what kind of skin problem, diarrhoea-causing parasite or infection, we can do it without going to the vet. Upon identifying the problem, we can simply administer the medication necessary if we have it on hand (and if not we can just buy it from the vet clinic without needing to transport the cat and pay for consultation).





Some examples of what we can identify: 

Demodex mite

If we do a skin scrape test and find this mite, then we can just treat the cat for this straightaway with lime sulphur baths; we have lime sulphur soap that costs only 50 cents per bar and works well for demodex mites. We can also concurrently apply Advocate, which we also have. 

Coccidia

If this is found in stool samples under a microscope when a kitten is having diarrhoea, it needs to go on Bactrim antibiotics to get treated before it gets too dehydrated from diarrhoea. Being able to identify the right infection the cat is having when there is diarrhoea, allows us to apply the right antibiotics immediately. Many diarrhoea problems won't go away until the exact antibiotic is given and there are quite many of them. 

If we get this we will print up a chart so we can refer the samples we see to the charts and identify the infections accurately. 

This item is on our Amazon wishlist so you can purchase it through Amazon. If you have any other alternative means because you are in a scientific research or similar industry you can also get it for us through your own familiar vendors. Our requirement is that it must be able to see 10X, 40X and 100X, and able to use with oil immersion slides. 

  

Nursing the Feline Patient by Linda E. Schmeltzer, Gary D. Norsworthy (Textbook)

This textbook is a comprehensive and accessible clinical manual addressing the unique nursing needs of cats. We are currently in the midst of building a Foster Care training curriculum for continual training of our volunteers as well as to improve on our training of new volunteers. There are many coloured, visual examples in the textbook showing, for instance, how to inspect the gums of a cat for signs of disease. It also gives definitions of the terms the volunteers will come across. It will serve as a good handy guide for learning about new "pawtients" with diseases encountered for the first time, so we can better care for the cat.

Nursing the Feline Patient

How to get this for us: This book is also in our Amazon wishlist so you can purchase through Amazon.. It would be a great companion guide to use alongside the microscope because it shows slide samples :).

And yes we do want the other things in our Amazon wishlist but these are the audacious requests, stuff that have weight and will really make a difference in the way we work for cats.

Enjoy giving this year-end season!








 

Sign up to become a monthly Cat Angel!

We need more monthly donors. As we raise the bar in our cat rescue work, the recurring expenses will grow over time, but so must the recurring income.

Without monthly donors, here are the things we cannot do:
■ Buy food and litter
■ Buy supplements
■ Buy pharmaceutical supplies
■ Pay regular veterinary expenses for inhouse cats
■ Pay veterinary expenses for stray cats that need medical help but whose rescuers cannot afford
■ Pay our monthly rent
■ Pay our monthly utilities

What happens when you give monthly?

You ensure we have enough food, litter, supplements, medicine and medical supplies for our shelter cats, no matter how serious their illness or injury is.

You help us give the terminally ill cats a great quality of life before they pass on.

You help us upkeep an environment that gives the shelter cats the physical - and - emotional welfare they need to rehabilitate well.

You help the volunteers help the cats with all the resources they need to give their best.

With income that we do not need to source on a month to month basis, we can fully focus on the work we do in loving the cats in our lives and neighbourhoods.

To become a monthly donor, you will need to use your bank's internet or mobile banking service to create a standing instruction to our bank account. Here are some instructions: DBS / UOB / OCBC

Account number: DBS current 027-905975-3
Bank account name: Love Kuching Project
Bank branch: Parkway Parade

If you do not have internet or mobile banking, you can acquire a hard copy standing instruction form from DBS which you can then submit to any DBS branch or mail in to them. We can mail one to you for you to fill up, simply provide us with your name and mailing address at fundraising [at] lovekuchingproject.org

Info for overseas donors:
Bank: DBS Bank.
Address of Beneficiary Bank: 12 Marina Boulevard, DBS Asia Central, Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 3, Singapore 018982.
Country: Singapore.
SWIFT Address/ Code: DBSSSGSG.
Should you require any further information, send us an email at fundraising [at] lovekuchingproject.org.

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card.   
Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection        

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[FUNDRAISING APPEAL] Urgent: 11 days till 1 October 2015

We have been through a month of heavy cash outflow, and currently do not have sufficient funds in our account to pay the monthly rental due via GIRO in 11 days' time.

We recently went through a widespread cat flu' bug, which really tired us out needing to administer flu' treatments and supplements. This is one of the reasons why we had a larger than usual cash outflow this month; one of our supplement orders cost S$383.36 because we intensively used supplements such as colostrum powder, echinacea tinctures for immunity for all the cats at risk, and lysine powder and marshmallow root which are some of the supplements for cat flu'. All the cats except severely immunocompromised Tiger have completely recovered since, although Tiger is already much better and no longer at the brink.

And if you follow us on social media, you would also know that we just spent $625.20 at the vet and we still need help covering that significant cash outlay.

Another item we recently purchased was a cat weighing scale that happened to be on 60% off. A cat weighing scale usually costs way over $100 and typically this is in USD. Our current weighing scale is inaccurate albeit we have been using it with some estimation for a couple of years now. It also cannot weigh kittens. Quite third world country standards but we haven't come across a suitable AND cheap weighing scale until this month. Cats' body weights are important information we need in order to callibrate the correct dosages of medication they require. Without that, even our vet, when she is at our cattery, has to use some estimation unless we bring the kitten to the vet clinic to weigh on their scale. We found a weighing scale at US$63.48, one that has a cradle so the cat cannot easily jump off, and, can weigh to the correct gram scale and decimal point for the weight range we need for all kinds of sizes of cats! We nearly leapt for joy and bought it while it was still in stock and on discount.

So, out of necessity, we had to spend more this month. Now we need your help to tide through to the very last day of September (when we have to wake people up).

How you can help
Make a general donation of any amount by 30 September, via any of these methods:
● Transfer funds via your bank to our corporate account DBS current 027-905975-3.
● Make a cash deposit at a POSB or DBS cash deposit machine to the same bank account number which will be classified at the machine as a DBS current account.
● Write a cheque to 'Love Kuching Project', cross it and write our account number at the back, then drop it at any POSB or DBS quick cheque deposit box.

After you give, please also share this post with your friends so we can reach as many cat lovers as we can within the next 11 days.

Thank you so much cat angels. If you would like us to verify receipt after your donation, email us.

Cat Massage Demo Workshop with proceeds going to Love Kuching Project

Update: Session available on 24 May!

Pet services boutique, Petitudo, is organising a cat massage workshop that raises money for us!

To sign up, contact Petitudo at 98476050 or email to hello@petitudo.com

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection        

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Update on our new cattery space #IF2015 #TheMove

New LKP Cattery - Lease signing from Love Kuching Project on Vimeo.

Check out the video above to see our new cattery space!

For those of you that have followed our #IF2015 journey from the start, giving for us to be able to place a deposit and first month's rent on a bigger space, thank you for your support! Here is more of the background story on us finding this place.

Initially, we wanted to rent a space for the same price through sharing with one of our merchandise partners, Alfie De Meow, who needed to rent a bigger space by April. But we ran into a lot of obstacles: landlord disapproval of our use of space for cats, or spaces too small or without a lift that could not accommodate Alfie De Meow's jewellery making machinery. Both of us decided that, if along the way of our search for a space to rent together, we found suitable places for either one of us, we would go that route instead. We had almost lost all hope after we kept running into obstacles, but all of a sudden, this space popped up. It fit our budget, was the right size, and the landlord approved of our use. If we didn't stumble upon this place, we probably would have given up the idea of getting a new space. 

Now that we are here, we are still appealing for monthly donors to our Boarding Fund to be able to make rent every beginning of the month. This is an urgent need that we need to fulfill, so that instead of appealing for funds monthly to make rent, we can focus on the work we are doing for the cats, and limit the appeals for donations to urgent, acute situations. A monthly donation from you can be set up over your internet banking platforms, as a standing instruction to our account DBS current 027-905975-3.

One of the greatest differences having a new space will make, is the separation of work and home for Elaine and Andy, who have been fostering cats since 2009. The space of a 3 room flat is not only limiting, it bears a huge weight on both founders mentally as well. We now have have a much more formidable volunteer force, built over the years, and the burden of care for the cats has been decentralised. We not only can increase the number of cats we can take in with a larger space, the care of the cats can be carried out autonomously by the volunteers without Elaine and Andy's presence there all the time (because the current foster space is their home). Not only are we going to finally create a work-life balance for Elaine and Andy, this new space sets the path for greater development of leadership among the volunteers. Leadership development is very critical for any organisation to have continuity - and we are in this for the long haul.

So do help us out by pledging a monthly donation. It will help us stay in this new space, and ease the stress of making rent monthly so we can focus on cats.

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection        

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Let's keep building: an appeal for monthly cat angels's gifts for our new cattery's upkeep! #IF2015

Apart from #nyanmade subscribers and #ERFund donors, all monthly donors' funds get channelled into our Boarding Fund directly, which includes paying for monthly rental. We are going to, paws crossed sooner than later, move into a bigger premises soon. And that means we have to be sustainable financially to pay our rent on time. We do not like owing money to those who provide us a service. Professionalism first!

Sneak peek of the new space

This means we need to grow our monthly Boarding Fund donations. Currently, we have $690 per month in standing instruction donations to our Boarding Fund. $490 goes to our current rental. Given that we are budgeting for a bigger space, we need as many cat angels as possible on board to pledge to give monthly to our Boarding Fund to grow this amount from $690 to at least $1,700 (budgeted rental and utilities).

What you will be giving to in pledging a monthly standing instruction donation to our Boarding Fund:
Rental of a bigger space that can house more cats including a quarantine area, an office space for Elaine. our full time staff and a meeting table for volunteers. 
Our Boarding Fund also pays for the following expenses:
Food, litter, cleaning supplies, pharmaceutical supplies such as saline and needles, supplements, essential oils, toys and treats. If your gift overflows beyond the rental and utilities cost, the money will be used for such necessities.

When do you start pledging a monthly standing instruction donation?
You can do so this month or start next month. If you intend to start next month and already know how much you will be giving every month, inform us that we will expect your donation to start in April instead of March, and how much, so we can do our budgeting. When you set up your standing instruction, you should include Boarding Fund or Rental in the transaction notes. Any transaction that comes to us as 'anonymous' automatically gets filed into general donations instead. If you need help setting up a standing instruction donation from your bank, let us know. Our account number is DBS current account 027-905975-3. We will help in any way that we can.

Let us know your monthly donation amount. Let us know early so we can make prudent decisions, If you want a receipt, please also give us your mailing address.

Pledge early, this will raise our morale, which we really - do - need, after seeing places where landlords reject us, or meeting landlords that accept cats but are offering too high rental prices. It has been a hard search and we need strength to go on.

Spread the word. A small monthly donation from your cat-loving friends can make all the difference in making our new cattery a reality!

Hurry, log in to your internet banking and get your phone ready!

*runs to finish line with Love Kuching*

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection      

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

GoNuts! | Home made Cashew Ginger Nut Butter (for humans) | Proceeds go to #IF2015

| GoNuts Handmade Nut Butters]

GoNuts is about humans eating healthy, and this month, all the proceeds from the sale of their Ginger Nut Butter is going to our cattery building fund, #IF2015!

GoNuts is a Grace and Michael and their three demanding cats living in Singapore, and they love cooking and eating healthy food! Some people call it Paleo, or Primal, or the Cave Man diet, but these are just labels. They simply believe healthy food is minimally processed and as close to the source as it can get. Combined with regular functional exercise and rest is a great recipe for looking and feeling your best.

The Cashew Ginger was selected for the charity sale because of their ginger cat, Julius! This nut butter contains cashews, spicy ginger with a hint of organic honey - paleo, gluten-free and vegetarian. Cashew ginger is one of their most publicized flavours: it has been featured on Sunday Times last December and just a few weeks ago on 8 days. Each jar is retailed at $10.

Julius

Each batch of nut butter is handmade

How to order GoNuts Cashew Ginger Nut Butter: Simply send them a Facebook enquiry! They also sell their nut butters at the Farmers' Market at Loewen Garden, Dempsey where artisanal food products are sold.

Do spread the word to those you know who like clean eating. They would surely be interested GoNuts!

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection      

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Hand-stitched notebooks by @cherylkwansyy for #IF2015

One of our Instagram followers,@cherylkwansyy, is selling hand-stitched lined notebooks to raise funds for #IF2015! At $20 each or $35 for two, this is cheaper than some branded notebooks, let alone handmade ones. It is like your Moleskine notebook, but more hipster. No one else will have the same notebook that you have because each one is individually made by Cheryl herself. And only 45 pieces are available, so hurry!

Only 45 pieces available

Only 15 pieces available per choice of faux leather cover colour

They are pocket-sized and can be bound close.The cover is not real leather, so it is absolutely vegan - no animals harmed in the making of your pleather bound notebook!

Choice of 12 colours for stiched book spine

This notebook would make a great gift to colleagues for work use and friends who love to write. You can instruct Cheryl to send it to them directly (via courier service) as a gift from you. 

How to order

After you email Cheryl with the details necessary, she will reply you to acknowledge your order and how to transfer the payment. She will also give you an estimated date of delivery. Handmade, so you have to wait a bit for the fruit of her labour!

We love this notebook so much we even bought it for ourselves. So hurry and get a hold of one of these 45 notebooks now!

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection        

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Pawfection eco-friendly safety cat collars with heart buckle for sale | 100% proceeds to #IF2015

Pawfection, our pet supplies vendor, has donated us their house-brand eco-friendly collars. You can buy them from us, and #IF2015 gets 100% of the profit! Thank you Pawfection!

You may not need another cat collar, and maybe you are willing to donate to #IF2015 anyway. Just treat the collar as a thank you from us.

Go green with this high-quality, nylon cat collar that features a lovely, heart-shaped (because we heart cats!) biodegradable-breakaway-buckle. Pawfect Twilled-Nylon Cat Safety Collar repels water and made of eco-friendly materials. It comes with a matching colour bell. The collar comes in either red or pink. 

Red

Pink

The collars are on sale for $8.95. Postage and packaging is borne by us. Your collar sent via regular snail mail (not registered mail) and should reach you within 2 working days of a confirmation SMS from us, excluding weekends and public holidays.

How to buy:
Transfer the payment to our corporate account, DBS current 027-905975-3. Go to this link and fill out an order form and fill in your payment amount (you can choose to pay more than $8.95), telephone number for receiving the confirmation SMS, mailing address we should post the collar to (it can be a gift!) and whether you want the red or the pink one, or even opt out of the collar.

Spread the word for us too, after buying! Thank you cat angels <3 p="">

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card. Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection        


Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

#Nyanmade by Love Kuching Project - monthly gifts for monthly givers!

Over the last few weeks, a group of us have been meeting at LKP HQ to brainstorm on ideas for a new "subscription" based model of monthly gifts for donors.

Our group has some amazingly crafty individuals, and so many creative ideas have been suggested for consideration. As always, Scotty was on hand to check on the quality of ideas and for final approvals.

The basic idea is this: someone (possibly your good self) arranges a special monthly recurring payment of $18.75 (or more!) to Love Kuching Project. Then you fill out a nifty form (here) and the super craft ninjas activate their artistic kungfu and mail you a secret handmade gift.

The funds you donate will go to the general fund for expenses including vet fees, health supplements and other cat related expenses that support Love Kuching Project's missions - cat rescue, rehab, rehoming and sterilisation of strays. You can read more about Love Kuching Project's mission here.

What exactly will you get? Well, it's a secret. But these are just a few of the very early-stage prototypes we've experimented with. We do promise that all the items are for humans, and not cats, since we know that not all cat lovers are able to have the joy of having a cat companion.

We've even come up with themes for the months ahead.

THEMES:

March: Longhand

April: Everyday appreciation

May: The important things

June: Sprucing it up

July: Holding it together

August: Pause

September: Marking territory

October: Boo!

November: Journeying

December: Looking forward

The themes don't quite give away anything, but that's the whole point! We'd like to preserve some mystery and surprise our donors every month. The gifts definitely aren't supposed to make up the value of your donation. In fact, to ensure that the majority of the funds go to the kitties you want to help, most of the value of the gifts will come from our artistic flair (and a fair amount of bargaining and thoughtful thriftiness). You can also instruct us to send the gift to a friend, or opt out of the gift altogether. 

Keen? Here are the steps to be part of the Nyanmade monthly subscription!

STEPS:

1) Make a recurring monthly payment to Love Kuching Project's bank account: DBS Current Acct 027-905975-3. The minimum is $18.75 until Dec 2015 to qualify for the monthly gift. You can always give more than the minimum... the more you give, the more kitties get!

2) Use your full name in the reference (and then use the same name when filling out this form so we know its you!)

3) Arrange for the contribution to be transacted on the 15th of every month (remember that some banks require 2-3 working days for the recurring payment to be activated). If you miss the date, your subscription will start the following month (or you can contact ami@lovekuchingproject.org to make special arrangements)

4) Once you have done the above, please fill out the form at bit.ly/nyanmade1!


Questions? Email ami@lovekuchingproject.org

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card  Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection     Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

#IF2015 Impossible Fund 2015 | Fundraising for a cattery space

[Edit 16 Mar 2015: We are still accepting one-time gifts for #IF2015 which at this stage is going towards the basic renovation works needed for the move into a new place. We are also appealing for monthly donors to pledge standing instruction donations towards our Boarding Fund to pay for the rental after the move. See here to find out more and how you can give.]

[Edit 3 Mar 2015: A -BIG- THANK YOU to all who gave towards the $4,500, we reached the first milestone of #IF2015 on 3 March 2015, ahead of deadline! The second leg of #IF2015 is to raise funds to pay a property agent, which is half a month's rental, $750.]

[Edit 25 Feb 2015: We need to raise the sum of $4,500 by 31 March 2015 instead of 30 April 2015 because we need one month to renovate the new premises in order to move in by 1 May 2015. Our co-tenant with whom is the reason why we can get low rental rates requires the space to be move in condition by 1 May which means renovation has to be done in April.]

We haven't revealed why the urgency for this specific sum of funds that is needed in a such a tight period of time. We will now, because we need all hands - yours - on deck to help us meet this challenge. We know that with all your support, we can rise up to make this fundraising target by the deadline.

We are mostly very inspired people here at Love Kuching but daunting tasks like this do scare us sometimes. This poem speaks well to address that fear:

It is well at every given moment to seek the limits in our lives.
And once those limits are understood
To understand that limitations no longer exist.
Earth could be fair. And you and I must be free
Not to save the world in a glorious crusade
Not to kill ourselves with a nameless gnawing pain
But to practice with all the skill of our being
The art of making possible.

Excerpt from a poem by Nancy Scheibner

An impossible dream. We have had one for a while now, and that is to further expand our foster space, and be a full-fledged cattery we can work from, house more cats with the same cosy ambience, but also a office desk for Elaine, a meeting room for volunteer discussions on programmes and projects, and a quarantine area so cats with airborne transmitted diseases don't need to be in the same room as the others.

Here is a sketch impression of what the new Love Kuching Cattery might look like.

Possible floor plan

^The quarantine area is only set up when needed and will have surgical drapes (hospital style). This is because the quarantine numbers are usually low in cat-count and will be a waste of space if allocated one room. The maximum threshold of such a design will be 23 cats, with comfort level threshold at 14. Current threshold is 17max/12comfort.


This bigger space dream was so impossible to us last year, we pictured it only happening earliest in 2016. We even gave a name to the funds we need to raise for rental - the Impossible Fund, hashtag #IF2016.

But here is where the story changes from impossible, to something possible.

One of our merchandise partners Alfie de Meow is looking for a new studio office space to rent and would like to share it as owner Elaine Tan doesn't need a huge place, and yet the larger the space the cheaper the rent per square foot. To share a space with ADM makes a whole lot of monetary sense. Right now we are paying $490 for rental of the foster space in Andy and Elaine's home, the foster space is only about 100 sq. feet.. For about triple the price of that at $1,500, we can actually make our Love Kuching Cattery with more than 3 times the size of our current foster space. feet an actual reality. In 2015.

What this means is that by the time we find a suitable space and have to move in, we need to have 2 months' deposit and 1 month's rental ready. ADM needs to move out of its current space in April so we are planning to move into our Love Kuching Cattery / Alfie De Meow Studio by 1 May.

We also need to factor in renovation time, which means we need to raise the full sum of rental plus deposit by 31 March 2015.

#IF2016 will become #IF2015 if we can raise $4,500 before the renovation and move in date of 1 May. Can we rise up to the challenge? Practise with all the skill of our being, the art of making possible?

We need your help.

What you can do: 
Give. Be part of #IF2015 and practise the art of making possible.

How:

Via bank transfer / ATM / CDM to our DBS current account 027-905975-3. Email us to indicate you have given to #IF2015.

Write a cheque out to Love Kuching Project and deposit it into any POSB/DBS cheque deposit box. Email us to check if your cheque has cleared and also to indicate you have given to #IF2015.

Give in cash whenever you visit our foster home in Ubi towards #IF2015. You should obtain a receipt for cash donations when you give in person.

Use your credit card to give on https://www.simplygiving.com/IF2015

Help us organise collections, activities and events to help us fundraise. Give us an email to discuss how you can do this for us.

Spread the word. You can either repost this on Facebook, retweet this on Twitter, repost on Instagram, or use the Simply Giving fundraiser page to hit the share buttons.

Let's make this happen.

Photo from Urban Pets Dubai

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card   
Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection    

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Dine with cats @ Love Kuching's Foster Space #dwc | a rustic, homely, furry-love enclave

 [1 March 2015: The silent auction for March's #DWC has started. Go to this link to place your bid. 4 places available only.]

Today's blog post comes with a background story. One day years ago, someone planned a surprise birthday for their friend Ami, who at that time was not yet a part of our 32-human-strong volunteer team. Her friend asked us this: Could we allow them the use of our foster home for a birthday party? Ami -really- loves cats. So we said yes and the party happened smoothly. Ami didn't guess where her friends were taking her to for her birthday surprise until they said, "We are going to Ubi."

Ami had a purrfectly wonderful evening, we are happy to report. Hence, now that she is one of our committee members, she proposed giving everyone else who loves cats the chance to have a special lounge-around cafe style at our foster space. Yes, Ami is also a mad cat evangelist! Share the love!

Lounge around in a rustic, homely, furry-love enclave

So we present to you, starting this March, available for all of you: a rustic cat cafe-like experience. Our foster space is located in Elaine and Andy's own home, so it is very laid back in its ambience. (It is... beyond hipster. We actually do have bicycles in our lounge, Which are actually used.) Andy and Elaine will brew coffee and tea for you to enjoy with your dinner, using freshly roasted beans or loose leaf teas, and you will have a vegan meal catered by The Garden Slug. Kitties that are allowed to roam outside their cat suites will hang around in the foster space with you while you dine. Feel free to get distracted by them!

Wanna sign up? Read on!

Dine With Cats
Because we are a nonprofit corporation, DWC is not going to be operated based on cat cafe charges, but by freewill donations starting at $50 per diner via a silent auction.

DWC will take place monthly, on the last Sunday evening of every month, starting in March. On the first of every month, we will start the auction, which is an online form you can fill in that looks like this:

Online silent auction form

You have to bid $50 or higher per person, in order to stand a chance to be one of our 4 guests per month for DWC. We only have 4 places available for reservations each month due to space constraints. The highest 4 bidders will be awarded the reservations for DWC, hence the higher the bid, the more likely you will get the reservation. The winners of the DWC silent auction will be announced on the second Thursday of the month, and will be contacted by our volunteers after announcement, to confirm the reservation and to tell you The Garden Slug specials that will be your main course.

Sample of a vegan meal served by The Garden Slug

The menu catered by The Garden Slug is vegan to suit all dietary needs, and will not contain onions because they are toxic to cats should they accidentally eat a food scrap. If you are already familiar with The Garden Slug menu, you will know they have vegetarian and vegan choices. For our DWC, they will be designing a special menu for us. Thank you Sluggies!

The first DWC is on 29th March 2015, Sunday, from 6:30pm to 8pm. The silent auction will start on 1st March, and the link to the online auction form will be blasted on our social media platforms. So follow us on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook (links below) to keep a lookout for the link! Bidding will close on 12th March 2015 before midnight.

Secretly, although this will help in fundraising, we like that it also raises awareness of the strays in Singapore that we care for, in a happy, cosy setting. We want you to enjoy being cat-evangelised to! Spread the word so that we can have a successful first DWC this March!

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card   
Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection    

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2015 - year of organic growth in our kitty work

For the past few months, we have thought, deliberated, discussed and voted over the things we want to do through LKP for cats in need in this year, and we would like to share them with you.

We want to grow in our existing work. This immediately conjures up dreams of a bigger space where we can provide care for more cats in need, but 2015 is simply not the year to do it. It will require a base fund of $60,000 as a pad for a year's rental and utilities, and thinking brick-and-mortar is limiting.

So we think of 'organic' growth. What is that really? It means we grow our existing programmes, beyond the constraints of the physical space we have.

In order to expand our rescue work beyond the 5 cat suites we can offer to sick and injured cats at a time, we need to grow our Foster Network. This is something we are already working on and you will find opportunities coming your way on how to be a part, big or small, in this. By expanding the number of Foster Caregivers we have, we can say YES to more rescue cases, because after we tend to their veterinary needs at the clinic, the cats will have somewhere to go to regardless of our brick-and-mortar limitations. We know your concerns. Can I foster a sick cat? Do I have the skills to? Do I have the time? We will quell all these fears in due course.

Another thing we are doing to expand our work, is in expanding our knowledge base. This started first off with the recruitment of Foster Care Volunteers to take shifts on non-play/clean days, focusing on the medical care of cats, and in administering supplements - nutraceutical, herbal, homeopathic, aromatherapy - to the cats to improve their base level of care beyond pharmaceuticals.

In light of increasing our Foster Network and in sharing our knowledge, we will give back more of what we have learned through the years of cat care with the public even more, so you can expect more cat care talks in 2015 that you can benefit from.

And in sharing our love for cats, specifically through feline therapy to humans that need it, we have found that this is a great need in our community. We as cat lovers in no way 'hate humans but love cats', instead we see that we need to share the love of cats more and more to people that need it, to expose myths about cats being dirty, to elevate their status as companions, to show the world they have much to give to humans just as we give to them. We will be doing more of our feline therapy outreach, don't you fear. Seeing how a human patient benefits from therapy from a cat is priceless. 

All this, will require more funds, in some way. But we don't see it as a problem, we see a fun challenge instead! We will be launching more kitty-fun stuff for you to take part in, because love for cats is after all a feel-good, lovely thing we want to evangelise to the world about isn't it! We (secretly) see it as education and outreach, but to you it will be something fun you can be a part of with the LKP community. What are we talking about? Akan datang! *tease*

This has of course led to some number crunching and we have come to realise we need to raise a total of $6,000 per month to meet our budget requirements. As we always say, if you can't adopt, foster. If you can't foster, volunteer. If you can't volunteer, donate. There is always something - you - can do to reciprocate the love that the cats in our lives and neighbourhoods give us.

Regardless of space. Yes, the humble Love Kuching Foster Space, is small. But we won't be letting it deter us. We will continue to raise the bar, as we do every single year. For you, and most importantly, for the cats.

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card  
Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection      

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Jerry from Pasir Ris with kidney failure and gum disease

Jerry arrived at our foster home on 15 November, a stray cat that is from Pasir Ris, rescued by Lynn. She sent us photos and descriptions of Jerry's symptoms: he wasn't eating very well, very emaciated. We met Lynn and Jerry at the vet before bringing him to our foster home, to get his condition diagnosed.

It turns out Jerry had gum disease, and he got a steroid and antibiotic jab for it. His heart was okay, and he has no FIV or FeLV, which is a good sign. But upon testing his kidney function, we found out he had kidney disease. He had to go on subcutaneous fluids daily from then on.

Back at the foster home, Jerry was very feral, he didn't eat, and was not easy to administer SC fluids to.

Jerry didn't eat

Worried about him not eating, we decided to hospitalise him and see if being on IV fluids with vitamin B will perk up his appetite. He was so aggressive that they had to sedate him to insert the IV catheter.

Jerry at the vet

By the next day, Jerry had started eating! We brought him back and he continued to eat. We administered vitamin B jabs to keep him going whenever his appetite was down, and tested out which food he would prefer: he had a choice of Addiction brushtail (our preferred choice), Wellness CORE fish (which Julie was eating cos she doesn't like anything else), and steamed pureed chicken. He finally settled on Addiction Brushtail.

He started to feel better after awhile, and eating daily became a norm. Eventually, this aggressive cat became docile, and we could even pat him and stroke him.

He is now also on a phosphorus binding agent for his food (necessary for renal conditions) and we will bring him for a review when he shows signs of improvement.

We are adding supplements to his regime slowly, as we don't want to 'spook' him and make his food taste funky and then he doesn't eat again. So he is now on a basal regime of vitamins and probiotics. He has a bit of constipation so we add pumpkin and psyllium husk to his diet too. We hope to introduce him slowly to the full range of supplements that will help with his kidney disease and gum disease.

Jerry now, still shy, but better!

He continues to be on 80-100ml of SC fluids a day. We just ordered more bags of Hartmann's solution, 18G needles and IV lines from Yeap Medical Supplies that distributes to clinics and hospitals. If you wish to help financially, make a donation to our Boarding Fund, which pays for such supplies. Our bank account number is below, and after you give, email to indicate you have given to the Boarding Fund. Thank you!

Donate to our cause by making a deposit to our Love Kuching Project DBS Current Account 027-905975-3 or via Credit Card   
Donate us food or litter at charity rates with free delivery via Pawfection      

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram