Where can one send a donation?
Gail

We are very alarmed at the unwarranted negative responses we have

I appreciate and understand the needs of a struggling shelter. I am affiliated
with a shelter, as are most of the posters here. However, this is a newsgroup
for the purpose of discussion, not for soliciting donations. Try to imagine
what it would be like if every one of us used it for a forum for fundraising
purposes. However, remember it is also a public forum, and any comments "thrown
out", so to speak, are subject to public opinion. I did not see any
"bashing"...what I read were opinions based on the information that was posted.

Someone referred

This is the link that was provided:
http://www.petfinder.org/shelters/PA295.html
It took me to a page with only your address, phone number. When I clicked on
adoptable pets, none came up. When I clicked on "Happy Tails", no further
information was available. I'd love to see your animals. Then I did a search
for "York New Salem, PA". Your shelter didn't turn up there, either. How do I
access them on Petfinders?

I'm very glad to hear that. But perhaps now you have the perspective of someone
who looks at your website without having visited your shelter.

Still, though, surely you make every attempt to home those cats. I simply don't
understand why your adoption fees seem to be secretive, or at least not even
addressed in any of your website info.

Sherry

Nicole,
In my experience, people who post on the internet to total strangers asking for
money are very suspect.  No one was bashing you or your so-called facility
here.  We are merely trying to determine whether or not you are a legitimate
organization, or just another internet scam.  There are many cat lovers here,
and we don't want to see anyone taken advantage of by giving money to something
that does not exist.  It happens  every day.  In fact, where I work we are
representing someone who was recently taken advantage of through an internet
scam.  So it's very hard to know who to trust these days.  As has been stated
before, anyone can compile a website and create a non-profit.  

Personally, I prefer to donate money to my local rescue facility where I know
them to be a legitimate organization and where the animals are getting good
care.

If you are indeed a legitimate organization, have you looked into other methods
to raise money, perhaps a raffle, or something?  Asking for money on the
internet, IMO, is not really the way to go.

Lauren
________
See my cats:  http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecatjournal.com/articles/claws.htm

That's a popular saying around here - 'assume' makes an 'a.s' of 'u' and
'me'.

So, yeah, it was what I was looking for.  ;)

What a line of utter BS. You just KEEP digging yourself in deeper and making
Last Resort sound worse.
1. A stray cat comes to Shelter A (was Sunflower OP you're replying to?)
A stray cat is vetted, fed, cared for, loved and given a *chance for adoption*,
and saved from suffering death by starvation or disease or injury on the
streets.
1. A cat comes to Last Resort. Woops! Strays cats don't come with $50, and
vet-check-spay certificates. So, it's "Bye bye Kitty" -- you can't check in.
Cat probably ends up taken to a kill facility, or worse, dumped.
It would seem that your mission is to re-locate the healthy cats people
relinquish,  while continuing to feed and care for the 150 you don't intend to
try to adopt out. A humane society's mission is to allieve suffering first.

I find it HIGHLY ironic that you're accusing her shelter of "trying to profit"
-- YOUR SHELTER is the one that requires a $50 bill with each intake.

Sherry

What do you think is happening to all the animals you don't take in?  Do you
think after someone tries to place and animal with you, and is told that you
are full, they just decide to keep it?
An Open Admission shelter HAS to take every single animal that comes to its
door.  It is much more humane than turning the animal away and leaving it to
get hit by a car or whatever else might happen.  I do not have the stomach
to volunteer at an Open Admission shelter, but I applaud those that do.  I'm
not saying they are all great, but we have to get off this myth that no-kill
shelters are a utopian setting.

Again, for the third time, I ask, why are you taking in highly adoptable
animals and making them live in a sanctuary?  Why not give them a chance to
have a forever home?  Or, if you are going to go through all the trouble and
expense of having a sanctuary, why not do it for those that really need it,
like cats with FeLV or FIV?  You could still look for homes for them, but
these cats take much longer to find homes and often are put down or turned
away at most shelters.

BS!  A shelter is trying to profit from the animals it takes in??  Give me a
break!  YOU only take in animals that come with a convenient $50.  The
shelter I'm with takes in cats and dogs without a donation, spays/neuters
them, gives them their first round of FVRCP and Rabies vaccines, and any
other necessary vetting.  And, then we try to find them a home!  What are
you doing?  Taking in perfectly adoptable animals and letting them sit,
never to have a true home of their own.  Yes, our shelter has cages, but the
cats are not in the shelter for very long.  For those more long-term
residents that are having difficulty getting adopted, we find other places
for them, like foster homes or the office.
I keep hearing that your barn is 2000 sq ft.  But, then I saw in another
post that you have 150 cats. 2000 sq ft might sound huge, but it's really
only the size of an average house.  If you heard on the news that a house
had 150 cats in it, wouldn't that turn your stomach?

I do not work at a closed admissions facility that turns animals away when
they don't come with a fee or they're full.  I work out of a city's ANimal
Control facility, which pays for two employees to go out and pick up new
animals but not for their care, and let me tell you, it's a damn sight
harder to do this than is collecting animals here and there that come with
money.  We do accept owner surrenders with a $25 fee, but if the person
refuses to pay the fee, and more than half do, we still take the animal.
And, the money doesn't even go to us.  It goes to the City. We take every
single animal that is brought to us, whether owner surrender, stray, or
found.  How many do you turn away?  What do you think happens to them?  They
end up at places like mine---if they're lucky and aren't just dumped on the
side of the road.

We operate a Trap, Test, Neuter, and Release program for a feral colony in
our Old Town section and work with other feral colony managers to provide
food and services to help them.  We sponsor a low cost spay/neuter vet to
make low cost surguries available to the community.  We do an annual $5
rabies clinic for the public. We travel to schools to do humane education
for the next generation.  We're liasoning with the HSUS to sponsor the Rural
Area Veterinary Service to come in and spay/neuter 100 animals *for free* to
a medically underserved area.  We work with rescues all across the USA to
pull animals from our shelter into their programs so that just because we're
overcrowded we don't have to euthanize.  And when we do have to euthanize,
we hold them and love them like they are are own, and we cry and grieve for
them.  But, we at least gave them a chance by accepting them into our
shelter, which you won't do unless the animal comes with that $50 fee. We
have zero paid employees, and every single cent goes to the care of the
animals.  It's laughable to even say the word "profit".

At first I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt because you were
obviously clueless about animal rescue in general and Usenet specifically.
But you're now trying to be deliberately offensive, which is the mark of a
troll.    Y'all are the ones with your hands out.  People have the right to
request information about your group.  Read your non profit charter.  If you
refuse to provide the information, that charter can be revoked.  You've
pissed me off enough now (deliberately) that I'm through trying to educate
you, and now if you don't provide the information I've requested, then I'm
going to file a complaint with the PA Bureau of Charitible Organizations and
let you deal with them.

Great PR attempt, BTW.  Contrary to the popular saying, any publicity is not
good publicity and you've probably just informed a whole lot of people all
across the world exactly what nasty defensive collectors your group really
is composed of.  There has not been one single *reasonable* response to any
of the questions that anyone posed.  And, guess what?  You are *required by
law* to answer those questions.   So get off your high horse and do so, or
else get your charter revoked.

f.ck you very much, and have a nice day!