Winter 2006

Dear Caring Friends of Touched By A Paw:

All of us at TBAP want to wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season. We also want to remember and thank all of you whose kindness and support has made it possible for us to do our mission to rescue and find loving homes for so many orphaned cats and kittens.

We are also writing to you because we desperately need your help. We now have over two hundred cats and kittens in our shelter and foster care. 2006 has been a rough year for TBAP with many significant changes. Our fund raising chairperson retired with still no replacement yet. Some of our annual fund raisers did not take place which left TBAP's finances way below our needs. Many previous cats adopted from TBAP were returned to the shelter, all different ages and for all different reasons. Cats and kittens were abandoned in boxes at our back door. This increased our population unexpectedly and stretched our finances. This seemed to be the year of an exceptional large population of helpless infant kittens found alone in various rescue situations.

Just last week, Ashley, a six week old kitten laid all day on the cold sidewalk in downtown Whitewater on Main Street. She was so dehydrated and weak that she could not get up. Finally, a young girl went and got her mother and they brought the kitten to TBAP. The kitten regurgitated a candy bar wrapper because that's all it could find that smelled like food. Ashley survived with round-the-clock nursing care and is now doing well.

Our main supplier for canned wet food has not been able to donate as often due to so many other shelters they must share with. We have had to cut back feeding adult cats any wet food to a minimum, or not at all, to save it for the kittens. We are down to a few hundred dollars and have outstanding bills to pay for medicines and vet care. We are faithfully praying with your help through the grace of God that we can keep the shelter going for the next Ashley that needs TBAP. We cherish and respect every gift you send to sustain life and reverse the suffering for these precious creatures given by God to sustain our spirits and be our companions who love us unconditionally. Otherwise, they would be like so many of the ones we pity and pray for, who are living at the mercy of the elements and environment, homeless and sometimes unknown to anyone. These are the ones only God sees with much sadness for their suffering - the ones that go unrescued.

No one at TBAP receives a salary. It is all given from their hearts. They are doing God's work here on earth and receive the blessing that overwhelms their hearts when a cat or kitten comes in rescued from illness, injury and only moments before with no future, now is safe and made well and has a future in a loving home.

Every donation is used for the needs of the cats in our care and the necessary costs of operating the shelter. I heartfully thank you in advance as well as our volunteer family here at TBAP. Most of all, those who are served here with our love and your love, but have no voice; they send a meow, thankful for their future. Come visit the shelter and see how happy the cats are to be warm, fed, clean, playtimes out of the cages and loved, while waiting for that special forever home.

Sincerely,

Janna Burhop President

And the TBAP Family of Volunteers - Touched By A Paw Cat Rescue and Sanctuary