Unearthing the Complex World of Cat Rescue: From Rehabilitation and Rehoming to Nonprofit Management

Have you ever considered the enormous impact you could make in the world of animal rescue? Our fascinating conversation with Shana Rush, founder of Biscuits Cat Haven, and Carol Lamar, Deputy Director of Perfect Pals, opens up a universe of possibilities for you to get involved. We uncover the gratifying world of cat rehabilitation, rescue, and rehoming, and the unique challenges associated with special needs cats.

Navigating the sphere of nonprofit organizations can be tricky, yet rewarding. In our chat with Shana, we unravel the art of boosting social media presence, building a reliable donor base, and the significance of mission and vision statements for nonprofits. We delve into the nitty-gritty of SEO, exploring the role of keywords and consistency in optimizing one's online presence. We also touch on the idea of outsourcing resources and the potential benefits of employing scheduling platforms.

Towards the end, we confront the harsh realities of animal rescue work, discussing the emotional strain of having to say no, and dealing with what is known as compassion fatigue. We also provide details on events like the Black Cat Ball, a fundraiser hosted by Biscuits Cat Haven, and how you can be a part of it. Wrapping things up, we put the spotlight on Free Time Solutions, a boon for entrepreneurs and freelancers looking to optimize their free time. Stay tuned for an eye-opening discussion about the triumphs, trials, and tribulations of animal rescue work.

Transcript

Heather Ross: 0:01

Welcome to At the Table, where we are connecting entrepreneurs, discovering missions and building communities with purpose body, soul, mind and business, with Charlie and Heather with free time solutions. Welcome to another Friday interview. I'm so excited to be at the table today. I'm Heather, your host. My co-host today is Carol Lamar, hello. And we are so excited today because we have Shana back in the house and if you didn't see Shana's previous podcast, you're going to love her today. And what is so exciting is that this is like Cat Lovers Day.

Heather Ross: 0:50

So Shana why don't you go ahead and introduce what you're doing?

Shawna Rasch: 0:54

Yes, hello, hello everybody. It's nice to see you guys again. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Heather and Carol, it's very nice to meet you and I'm looking forward to this time with you.

Shawna Rasch: 1:03

So my name is Shana Rush and I am the founder of a 501C3 nonprofit organization called Biscuits Cat Haven and we focus on cat rehab, rescue and rehoming.

Shawna Rasch: 1:14

We are not a shelter, we are actually a rescue organization that likes to partner with other nonprofits and rescue organizations to allow them to be able to say yes to more rescues that come through, and so the idea is that we want to be kind of like a temporary foster that allows them to be able to have more kitty cats get adopted.

Shawna Rasch: 1:34

Their fosters can move their fosters into the shelters that they can get adopted, and then the ones can come out of us and go to them, allowing them to be able to save and rescue more. In addition to that, we do T and R work, which is called trap and new release, and so, excuse me, we work with a lot of feral cats, stray cats and, for all cat colony care, where we trap them, we get them fixed and we release them back to the same place with which we trap them from, and then eventually we would love to have a space of our own so that we can have our own sanctuary for those kitty cats that are ready for retirement and or have a hard time getting adopted. We'd love to have some feral cat colonies and work in a space of feral cat translocation, because it can be done, but it takes the right education and patients to be able to do so. So there you go.

Heather Ross: 2:19

That's what I do. Oh, thank you so much, shana, and I think that's so exciting, because today, if you haven't been following us and I'm frozen, okay here we go.

Carol Lamar: 2:31

You're following us, Okay so I'm the deputy director at Perfect Pals. I oversee all of the operations that we do here. Our organization has been around for over 30 years and we specialize in special needs cats. So even though we do bring in healthy cats and kittens, our main goal is to get those cats that the other shelters can't take care of or don't have the resources to take care of because their focus more on strays and public surrenders. So we will take those and our wonderful donors have been great to be able to fund us so that we can get them all the health care that they need so that they become stable enough to go into a home. So we've got like diabetic cats and seizure cats and renal cats and the whole gamut. So in a nutshell, that's what we do.

Heather Ross: 3:32

And how long have you been working with Perfect Pals?

Carol Lamar: 3:36

I am celebrating 10 years coming up in the next couple weeks.

Heather Ross: 3:42

So that's been a while. So, before we got started, we were Shawna I like how could we support her and what kind of things that she could use some help with the day, and the first one was social media traction. And I think it's really exciting because you're first year on the podcast today, right? So of course, we're going to be shouting you out, right? So I think that some of the things is I would love to offer you a social media audit so that Charlie and I could look at what's happening, because it could be something like you accidentally shared a link in your main post that takes somebody off of Facebook and Facebook tanked your algorithm, or it could just be Facebook is being rude and we need to create a little bit more excitement in your feed, right? Okay, I think you're exciting and I follow you, obviously, but even for me, I am on Facebook off and on all day because of what I do, and I'm still getting stuff that's four or five, seven days old and I'm like I would have loved to have loved on this the second this was posted.

Heather Ross: 4:58

So everybody feels that sometimes, but when we're so focused on a goal, it's hard to see the big picture. So I would love to do that for you. So that's one big tip is don't don't put links in your post Collab, so it sounds like you're doing a lot of collaboration with other rescues and anytime that you can take each other back and forth, then that's creating community in the Facebook community, and then Facebook likes that right, because you're working together back and forth and at builds community. She's right. Thank you very much. I think it's just tips I'm giving you off the top of my head, right? No, this is great.

Shawna Rasch: 5:49

And I agree with you on the.

Shawna Rasch: 5:51

You know, social media is kind of like when you get email overwhelm and you just things come in and they come in, and they come in and you just start triaging whatever you think is probably the most important and whatever doesn't make it to the top, somebody will get back to you because you just can't get through all of them.

Shawna Rasch: 6:06

And with social media, because we use it so much, I mean I know, if I haven't been on an hour, I'm not come back. There's all these things from all these people and it's like now you're parsing out your time and well, which one do I want to spend my time on? And I feel like there's a balance there too between if it's too long and they don't want to read it, but if it's not long enough, then it doesn't capture their attention and, you know, evoke emotion. I don't always want to be like, hey, can you donate? And so we want to just share stories as well in the kitty cats and promote them. And you know, and want people to share, if nothing more, just to share who you are and get the word out.

Heather Ross: 6:40

I want to share one more secret that nobody really talks about. So if you consistently post, even if it's long, and you feel like nobody's looking at it, do you know who's looking at it? Google, google's looking at it. So when people are starting to search, facebook is considered a credible source on Google, so it actually boosts you in, naturally boosts you in the search engines. So keep using your keywords, keep posting, even if you're not getting that engagement, you are boosting your SEO and everyone's like how do?

Heather Ross: 7:16

you boost your search engine optimization Right Like that's a scary. Seo is a scary term, but literally your consistency on Facebook actually boosts you up.

Shawna Rasch: 7:26

I did not know that that is a good, that's a good secret to know.

Heather Ross: 7:29

Yeah, and it's been fun because I didn't know. That's something we learned through experience was like wow, now we're Googling our art. You know the people we've been working with for six and nine months and we're like look at their search engine optimization. How does that happen? Because we're doing the things, but when you do the things consistently, it's so cool to watch them come together. So yeah, do you have any suggestions or any like?

Carol Lamar: 7:58

So we've been lucky enough to have someone who does the social media side of things here, so I'm actually not a wealth of information when it comes to that, so unfortunately I don't have a lot to offer to that specific topic, except that our person does a fabulous job.

Shawna Rasch: 8:18

And I'm hoping, I'm hoping with with my, with Shelly that's my former boss when we were. We were having dinner yesterday and I'm kind of hoping that maybe she's got the time and she enjoys it and she's a really great writer. So I'm like you are welcome to play with this, you are welcome to post. I can drop videos and pictures inside of Google Drive for you and have at it and I can try to tell you what we're working on and what we're trying to accomplish and achieve and you know that kind of thing and see what she can do with it. And if she's got more time and even if she's got more expertise than I do, then maybe she'll she'll make you know a much further impact with that than I would. And I think that outsourcing some of those resources is probably more beneficial than if I'm the one that's always necessarily struggling to get it done. So because sometimes having somebody else's in SME works more in your favor than if you're the one who's trying to do it all.

Heather Ross: 9:10

Exactly. I also use the scheduling platform and that was a game changer because I can always maintain consistency that way. Right, and the consistency overrides the posting it yourself every day, because eventually you're going to slack off, it's going to happen. Life happens, you know intended to and it takes all of that intended to out of it. It's pretty awesome.

Shawna Rasch: 9:45

I can talk to you about that too. Like that appointment with me. Okay, we'll do the things, we'll have the connections. I think that's great.

Heather Ross: 9:57

I didn't know that we were going to be talking in my as I'm a genius. Today it's so nice. So next we wanted to talk about, like a thing, our donation game, like how, how do we start a nonprofit, how do we keep it going with donations? Any, any advice you could give us. Carol, what do you got?

Carol Lamar: 10:21

Well, I mean that first step is that 501c3, which you know Shawna has already done. Right, you have that right. Okay, yeah, but with the donations, I mean you have to start building that donor base, right, so it's getting that word out. So social media is part of that, you know. Know your mission and vision. So if you don't have a mission and vision statement, you should work on those, like what is your ultimate goal for the organization? You know, and make that into like a one or two sentence, that blurb that just sums it all up. You know, and then have have stories like really strong success stories that you can share and say like this is why we do what we do, because you know fluffy came into the organization and we were able to do this and this and now they're finding their forever home, kind of story. You know just that. You know they came in like this, we were able to help them this way, and then this is what the outcome was. And, and I would say, you know, have a few stories in your arsenal that you know really well that you can share with them. You know, because I found a lot of people tend to like to give towards, even though we all know overhead is part of the cost, right, but people like to hear what you're doing with the programming, like the cats, like what's happening with the cats. How are you helping the cats? You know, I think down. Most people know that you have to pay rent and you have to keep the lights on and you have to do all that stuff, but that's not what they want to hear. They want to hear about the cute kiddies, the lilies, that live in your office and you know things like that, right, right.

Carol Lamar: 12:10

And one thing that we're finding even after all these years. We've kind of ebbed and flowed with you know how we've engaged with the community and recently we figured out that we're kind of losing some a little bit of traction. So we were trying to figure out what's going on. And with COVID we had stopped doing a lot of community events and even just having a booth that, even if it feels like you're not getting a lot of traction from it, you're still out there, you're getting your name out into the community and finding those like, because we do. I think the people locally are starting to realize you know we're here, this is what we do, but getting out a little further than just our little spot, you know. So, like we're in Arlington and I think Arlington is pretty solid with us for the most part. But getting out into those other areas and starting to move our feelers out further, you know, and finding those community events in those other communities too, yeah, I think that's a good start. I mean things will grow.

Carol Lamar: 13:16

You know, like we do grant, we look for grants for funding also, and so my executive director does those mostly we encourage people to do. Even though Facebook fundraisers are kind of there's a love hate relationship with them because you can't build a donor database from those, you're not getting personal information from them, but it's they're still I mean people like doing them. So encouraging people that they want to do those, like hey, you could do a fundraiser for your birthday on Facebook and things like that. And that was the other thing is having that donor database. So I don't know if you have anything that you're keeping track of donors in, but that way you can reach out. Like if you have a specific plea, like oh, we're running low on kitty litter or food, or I have this one cat that's going to end up costing us extra because of whatever's going on with the kitty, you can reach out to that donor base and ask them specifically for X amount. Like, hey, I'm doing a plea on kitty litter, would you be willing to donate towards that or something.

Shawna Rasch: 14:31

I do have. I'm keeping right now. It's a very poorly replicated version of a CRM inside Excel. Okay.

Heather Ross: 14:40

I actually yeah, it's still something inside I've got who they are, their information, what they did.

Shawna Rasch: 14:45

also, who they were referring by if I actually happened to have no somebody who's from a referral perspective, oh good.

Heather Ross: 14:50

After email address and they all.

Shawna Rasch: 14:52

I personalize all of the thank yous to them right now. I did talk to another lady. She's a tax specialist and she used to run her own nonprofit and she's like go ahead and invest in a CRM program for application. It doesn't have to be really expensive, but she gets one that's got email capability because it'll save a whole lot of time for you outside of doing a spreadsheet. So that is something I was going to look into and see kind of like from a cost perspective what I was looking at.

Heather Ross: 15:21

So there's a free version of HubSpot.

Shawna Rasch: 15:25

Hub like PUD Hub.

Heather Ross: 15:27

HUE, hubspot, and that's a great base CRM Okay, and you can email stuff and then you can move up into paid versions later but, like for free.

Heather Ross: 15:38

You can like literally build it how you kind of want it. It's fairly intuitive. But, like you can watch YouTube universe and get the basics of how to run, you know, put your stuff in For donations. I'm on the Marysville Police Foundation board and we are also a 501C3. And we are using Divya I'm not sure how to spell that for our donations and then it creates the donor's database in there. So I actually would love to get you in contact with our bookkeeper because she set that up for us. Okay, write that down. Her name's Chelsea. She's been on the podcast and she specializes. Oh hi, sorry, kathy's good.

Shawna Rasch: 16:39

It's a. Thing.

Heather Ross: 16:47

It's totally a. Thing.

Shawna Rasch: 16:51

So I also attended recently and I don't know how much you guys know about this group it was called radical. It was called radical marketing. I'm probably going to butcher that. They just recently put on a virtual marketing summit. It was three days. I didn't get to attend as many sessions that I wanted to, but it was geared towards nonprofits and marketing in nonprofit space, and so, like Gib Butter was a sponsor and there was something called fundraiser, up was another one that was a sponsor, and so they had all these different people that were there kind of designed to talk about. You know what you can do from a marketing and a fundraising perspective in the nonprofit space. So they have another one coming in March and, carol, I can show that information with you in case it's beneficial.

Carol Lamar: 17:33

Oh yeah, For sure.

Shawna Rasch: 17:36

What I did watch was actually really good, so, but you know how they would love to talk to you about that, because the more because I've downloaded quick books online, so I've got all my accounting stuff in there. I'm doing accounting for now. Eventually, when I'm bigger and more is going on, I'll hire an accountant to do that. That way, I make sure all my stuff is like yeah.

Shawna Rasch: 17:56

And then I am going to work with the tax specialist that I'm working with is very knowledgeable in the 501 C3 space and taxes, so that's not something that I want to try to learn.

Heather Ross: 18:06

I can, I want to be aware, I want to be aware but I will pay for something else.

Shawna Rasch: 18:10

Take care of that. So I'm all good.

Heather Ross: 18:12

I like that you're in your zone of genius and getting up in like correct areas, because those are all the areas you don't want to mess with, right no?

Shawna Rasch: 18:22

That's where you know just enough to be dangerous.

Heather Ross: 18:24

But, I know how great work, but I don't want to make it.

Shawna Rasch: 18:28

Yeah, no yes.

Heather Ross: 18:30

Absolutely. I don't want to get to know all the details and what's happening, but I don't need to know the nitty gritty of how you got there and why no? Yeah, no, no no.

Carol Lamar: 18:42

So, Shauna, do you have like, have you been utilizing, like your local businesses too, for maybe getting supplies? Because one thing that we do is like Walmart will send us their damaged goods and I mean a damaged box of kitty litter is like I mean we got. We're a little bit more pickier with food, but with some of those supplies, like we get stuff from the Amazon warehouse that's damaged, we get stuff from Walmart that's damaged. Petco and PetSmart are I don't know what you have in Texas, but we have Petco.

Carol Lamar: 19:17

Okay, they'll do food drives for us. So we've made connections with their managers. Yeah, they'll put a little bin out and say we're doing a food drive this month for Perfect Pals, you know, and they'll do different organizations, that they will do food drives and we give them like a wish list. Like this is kind of what we're looking for and if we get anything, so we also have a food bank for our community Pet Food Bank. So anything that we can't use for the shelter, we put in the food bank so the community can use it. But yeah, that's been huge. Like we definitely don't have to buy as much out of our operating expenses because we get some of that stuff donated through the local.

Shawna Rasch: 19:59

That's awesome. Yeah, I didn't even know that was really an option I was working on putting together like a marketing sheet that I was going to send out to those that I know that work at companies and businesses and then hit the community here too and kind of try to promote business cat haven from a sponsorship donation perspective. I don't mind doing the work, I don't mind getting in front of people and talking, but trying to get those connections made and that's awesome. I will definitely look into that, thank you.

Heather Ross: 20:27

Yeah yeah, that list of people you can refer people to. And there is a organization called the Boogie Bin and it's it's founded on for dogs, but they do other nonprofits as well, but they literally they're not. They are a nonprofit that collects donations and then distributes them to other nonprofits that need them. Oh wow, that's cool.

Carol Lamar: 20:58

That's cool.

Heather Ross: 20:59

Yeah, that's another local organization that someone had the idea for. Here, too, she puts bins in different locations and people just drop off their donations at the bookie bin. That's way cool.

Carol Lamar: 21:17

That's cool. Oh, Go ahead. What were you saying? I was going to tell you about other things. I wanted to make sure if you didn't know about this already, but workplace giving A lot of companies like here we have Microsoft and Boeing and stuff like that, but they will. The employees can set up a giving through their work, so it comes out of their paycheck and then some of those companies will match. So if an employee gives 50 bucks, they'll give us 100 kind of thing, depending on the matching. So I'm not 100% sure how to get your foot in the door on that, but I can find out and get you information on how to get something like that started too.

Shawna Rasch: 22:05

That would be great, because something that I would love to do. I know we're talking about my organization, but I've gotten connected with a lot of other rescue organizations in my community, so I started and then it's been amazing. One of my current business coaches her name is Jackie Cote. One of the things that I keep telling her over and over again is I just cannot believe, since I have really leaned in and stepped into this, I cannot believe the number of connections that I have made since we started, and it's amazing that people that I have met and all in this space right and like you're one of them, and so the more I meet, the more I meet and the more I meet.

Heather Ross: 22:48

I mean it's more and it's happening really fast.

Shawna Rasch: 22:50

That's the other thing I'm trying to like keep track of the wall and meeting but it's proving to be very it's a bit overwhelming because there's so much because you, because there are great connections, and so it's.

Shawna Rasch: 23:00

I see the struggles, like I see my own and I see theirs, and Texas is in a huge crisis right now with animal population and trying to get donations and trying to find funding and trying to find people and manpower, and you know, it's just it's not. We're hitting a point where it's just not enough. And so and you talk about somebody with special needs I have a lady that runs her own sanctuary and she does nothing but special needs cats. She's paraplegic cats, you know all of that kind of stuff and she's got an amazing staff of people.

Shawna Rasch: 23:29

But again, it's the funding and it's the keeping the project going and the program and so learning these things for me allows me to share this with them and be able to collaborate on how we can make bigger impacts and bigger programs, because, at the end of the day, I don't just want to make a local impact. I want to make a global impact and I want to create programs and things that we can do that is repeatable and integratable all across the world. That helps with this.

Carol Lamar: 23:55

Yeah, that's awesome.

Carol Lamar: 23:57

I think too, like the industry went from.

Carol Lamar: 24:00

You know, everyone was kind of doing their own thing and in the last I mean in the 10 years I've been doing this I have seen all the shelters and organizations come together because they see that each organization kind of has their niche and that they all work together. We can make a bigger impact. And if we're not fighting against each other, going well, I don't like how you're doing it and I don't like how you're doing it, and we all may have different ways to get there, but really the overall goal is to make sure these animals are taken care of and to be their voice right, and so I think people are starting to come to that realization that if we work together, we're going to make a bigger impact than if we're working against each other just because we don't agree with a couple of things here and there you know, and then being worried too I think they're the financial aspect is like well, if I share this information to you, well, I still get, whatever I'm looking for, what my organization needs.

Shawna Rasch: 24:52

And so, and I want you know and that's something that's always been a big thing in every company I've worked for and over my career is that collaboration and in building that communication and that community within what we do and bridging that gap there that kind of comes with it, and empowering others to realize that if you really share your knowledge and we come together as a group and we talk about the goals and the things we're trying to achieve and the impact we're trying to make, you're fine, that we're all really looking for the same thing, and if we all bring our expertise to the table, we can do so much more together, collectively, than we ever could if we do it independently.

Heather Ross: 25:27

Right, and I think one of the things that happens is compassion fatigue. So it becomes harder to be part of that community when you yourself are your compass empty, you're no longer surfing from your overflow and you're taking from your reserves. You don't feel good, so you don't show up with your peers in a way that's conducive to that kind of environment. So why don't we talk about a little bit of compassion fatigue before we finish up today? Carol, you want to get on the sofa? Yes, I know.

Carol Lamar: 26:03

I can talk about this all day because it affects almost everyone who's in some sort of caregiver role and I think when you see the hard cases, from where they're coming from, like you know, I think we're in this industry because we're compassionate and we're empathetic and you tend to take on those feelings and you have to be able to compartmentalize that or you're going to burn out really fast, absolutely, and saying no is hard, like you know, because what you have on the other end of that is a living creature and you don't know. You say no, you start struggling with those feelings of what if I was their last chance, were they going to be? What happened to them after I said no? And I had a friend who just recently she works in the veterinary field in a private practice and she reached out to me to see if we could take one of their cats that someone had surrendered because they couldn't afford care. And right now we're in a position where, at least with the clinic going into this construction mode just temporarily to fix this week, we really can't have a lot of cats coming through because we can't properly care for them if we don't have our clinic available for a week. So I had to tell her no this time and I told her. I said I feel really bad that we can't take them. And her response and I'm going to read it, it's like on my computer back here but she said the shelter is unfortunately not an endless well. You say no to one so you can continue to say yes to many others.

Carol Lamar: 27:31

And that was so reassuring, even though I've been doing this for so long and I've told myself that I've told my staff that, like in that moment, it was just that reminder that we can't save them like we individually can't save them all. It's going to take a collective we to make that huge dent, but what we can do is what we can do, right? Yep, you know, like we're limited by finances, we're limited by space and resources. We do not have an endless well of all these resources. So we do the best with what we have and we try not to walk away with that feeling of guilt because we couldn't do more. You know, and it's not as easy as just saying I'm not going to feel guilty because you know we all we want to help them, all we really do, but we always just be like yeah, I know Right, I wish I could just be like sure, bring your cat, yep, yeah, yeah, because once they find out, you do and you open that door.

Shawna Rasch: 28:34

They're like poosh, they come in like your floodgates.

Shawna Rasch: 28:37

And so that's a great. I would love for you to share that. Can you read that again, because I think that's really powerful. That's a really powerful thing she said to you and I think that's super important for, especially for anybody else of watching this and for other nonprofits that we can share this with and rescue organizations and, to your point, caregivers, because it does go beyond just the fur babies, right? That's true? Yeah, so read that again if you don't mind. I think that was really great.

Carol Lamar: 29:01

So she said the shelter is unfortunately not an endless. Well, you stay no to one so you can continue to say yes to many others. So very profound, and I love that she just said it in such a succinct couple sentences, because that's probably going to be my mantra, yeah.

Shawna Rasch: 29:20

Yeah. And I wish that others, people that are not in this space, that do this work, but they're the ones that reach out for the help or the variations of the reasons why they can't keep their animals or why they're going to have to let them go, or those that find them abandoned or whatever. The stories right, because the stories are numerous. They run the full gamut of everything from I just don't want it to I can't, to lifestyle changes, to whatever.

Carol Lamar: 29:46

Great.

Shawna Rasch: 29:47

And you know it's as a person who owns cats and as a person who runs a nonprofit organization, at least for kitty cats and I have several friends that do the dog space and you just you know, when you're watching and you're experiencing it, it's really frustrating and it's very difficult and it can be very disheartening at times, because we pour our hearts and souls into these guys because they deserve it. You know why shouldn't?

Heather Ross: 30:10

they, they deserve it, they rely 100% on us.

Shawna Rasch: 30:13

They didn't ask to be here, we brought them here, and so and that's our responsibility to make sure they're cared for and they're loved and safe. And so when they're just discarded like a piece of trash, it is very difficult, sometimes emotionally, to wrap your head and heart around it. And and then to your point. If you can say yes to save one, then you're like oh right, you know so great.

Carol Lamar: 30:36

I try to. My team sometimes struggles with the people that come with the animals. Yeah, because there is that level of I mean, you don't know their full story. Sometimes they act kind of aloof about the animals when they bring them in. But that could be their way of protecting themselves from all the feelings because they don't want to give up their cat, right? And.

Carol Lamar: 30:58

But I tell people like, even if someone there has been times that people have walked in and I'm listening to this and I'm dealing with this person and I'm thinking, okay, just sign the cat over and leave Like I'm kind of you need to just give me your cat and exit the door, you know, and those are very rare.

Carol Lamar: 31:18

But what I tell my team, like when you get those hard cases, or if we get animals that we get transferred in from these places and important cases is I understand that this animal is in a really bad place, but now they're with us, so let's focus on getting them healthy and better and finding them home and let's not focus on their past and what they went through, you know, because that's what's going to end up, you know, making us burnt out and making us sad all the time and dealing with all that. But now it's like I acknowledge their past and that that was rough and we all heard about it and we all know about it. But now let's focus on making that cat, giving that cat a better space, helping them heal physically and emotionally and then finding them at home, you know, and I think that kind of helps them get out of that mode of like, wow, that person was a piece of work.

Shawna Rasch: 32:09

Yeah, we have our own evidence for that.

Carol Lamar: 32:15

Really really rare moments. I mean usually it's you know, it's you know mom had to go into assisted living, or my loved one passed away, or you know, or I, you know, got evicted. I have to move. I can't move into a place where my animals are not. Lily Lily on her opinions to apparently.

Shawna Rasch: 32:40

Let me tell you what I feel about this.

Carol Lamar: 32:44

And I tell people to. It's like people come here because they want to work with the animals, but people come with those animals. So there is that level of having to, you know, be kind and compassionate, because a lot of times we don't. If we're not walking in their shoes, we don't know right, yeah, and not focusing on well, I would never surrender my cat, I would never. I would always take them with me. I'm like that's what you say until you're in a situation where you can't, yeah, and so let's, let's not judge, let's not. You know all that stuff.

Shawna Rasch: 33:14

So yeah, I think that one of the things that that's that I for me, and that I mentioned to those that I, you know, volunteer with and what have you, is that I know we can't say yes to all of them, but for every cat we say yes to, we do make an impact.

Shawna Rasch: 33:31

It may not feel like you make an impact, but you do because, as you know, exponentially, one cat can create thousands and thousands of cats over their lifetime and that one that comes, they know the females are coming out, can do even more, and and so it's such a if you do the map and within a side of one year you're like oh my god, that's just out of one cat and I'll take that and take a fair of group of 20, or take an abandoned group of. Suddenly you're like holy crap that's a lot.

Shawna Rasch: 33:56

So, yeah, every single cat you say yes to you do make an impact and don't minimize the impact you're making for for one cat at a time. Yeah, you make an impact, one cat at a time, and that is you know for me. When I can't always say yes, that's what I go to, that I remember. It's you know for anyone, but I do make an impact and it's one of the reasons why I really enjoy T and I work. I travel around, probably about 20 miles from my house to go help and I've been to planersville and spring and Cypress and whatever, because and it's a those of you don't know, t and R means trap and release trap neuter and release.

Shawna Rasch: 34:34

Yes, release, okay. It's the idea behind these kind of programs and these efforts that we do is just that you know you can't bring every cat inside. Some cats don't do well, since like cats, like cats anyways, and some of these guys have only ever lived outdoors and so what their homes and what they know is where they are. So what you're doing is that you're humanely trapping them and then you're getting them fixed and they're getting their vaccines and they get a little ear notch, so that visually, because all these guys are feral and don't let you touch them, you know who you've been able to take care of. And then they go back into their environment where they've lived and they're comfortable and they're safe, and that's where what they know.

Shawna Rasch: 35:10

If you actually take them out of that and you fix them and you drop them somewhere completely, altogether different, they aren't going to know it, they aren't going to be safe and they aren't going to.

Shawna Rasch: 35:16

They are not going to, they're not going to adapt, and then they won't make it. But for everyone that you do, you're preventing feline overpopulation, at least in that one cat, and that cat's healthier for it. And then you do another one and it's the same thing and you know it's. There's the fosters and then you find them homes and then there's the TNR work, which is more immediate, and I'm a part of an effort where once a month we do a free TNR clinic and we'll do 150 cats in one day where we spay and we neuter. And all these people in the city of Houston that trap, in all the different areas that are around us, they go trap cats, they bring them in and we spend a whole day spaying and neutering and those guys take them back home and they care for them and give them what they need and then they go back to their outdoor environments when they're ready. So, but one cat at a time, one cat at a time, right.

Heather Ross: 36:06

Yeah, I love this too because, as caregivers, sitting in the gratitude for what you can do instead of looking at what you can do yes, that's a beautiful place to fill your cup in what you can do and what you're able to do, and I love that, coming together, we can talk about these things. So thank you, ladies, so much for this amazing conversation. Yeah, I love cats all day.

Heather Ross: 36:35

Me too. Yeah, okay, yeah, I know for us that Carol has the black cat ball coming up in October, the second weekend. There's tickets available if you'd like to come and be part of that experience and help with that.

Carol Lamar: 37:00

What was that? What is it? What is your?

Heather Ross: 37:03

black cat ball, carol.

Carol Lamar: 37:05

It is our annual auction, fundraiser, so it's we get together, we've got people who donate a lot of items and some companies that'll donate items and trips and things. So we have a silent auction and we also have a live auction and there's food and we do a costume contest because it's usually around Halloween. So, yeah, it's just a fun night. It's really fun the silent auction, because, as it's closing, everyone kind of rushes back and they're like am I still the top bidder? And the live auction gets pretty crazy. Sometimes, too, you get people who see something they really want and they just there's maybe two people that are raising their paddles over it and you're just like, wow, this is so cool. But it's just really neat to see our donors come together and just have a fun night and putting a faith to their names too, which is always fun because I see their names, I know kind of who they are, but then I get to meet them and then it's always a bunch of just crazy cat people. So it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.

Shawna Rasch: 38:18

I take it this is local to where you are. Kind of those that are not local. Maybe donate towards your silent auction or your live auction or whatever. How does that work with somebody if other organizations want to be involved in that with you?

Carol Lamar: 38:34

So I mean I will never turn away a donation. There's a donate button on our website if you want to just donate to our general operating expenses. As for black cat ball, like if it's a physical item, I mean you'd have to be able to ship it to us to be there. But if it's something like a trip or an experience, we could always have that conversation. If you go to our website at perfectpilesorg, there is a button for black cat ball and on there is the sponsorship and donor information. Okay, so if you have something that you wanted to give or to try to close that down around September 15, which gives us about four weeks to get everything prepped for the actual event but yeah, I mean we get. I mean sometimes we get trips and things like that donated, so they're not always local companies and stuff like that. I do that.

Shawna Rasch: 39:35

So yeah, Well, that's fantastic. I will definitely go take a look at that.

Carol Lamar: 39:40

Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Heather Ross: 39:42

So all the fun things are happening. Do you have any fun events coming up for you, Sharma?

Shawna Rasch: 39:48

Me in terms of like what this is Kat Heyman.

Heather Ross: 39:51

Yeah, do you have any like or big events that you're taking part of?

Shawna Rasch: 39:56

So I actually I haven't put together any fundraiser type campaign type things yet. That is actually on my list of to-dos. So then I actually was thinking about potentially doing a golf tournament in the spring. It's so hot here right now that trying to do anything between now and November is just miserable. The last couple of days have been nice. We do joke. We've been in you know, 100 and 9s and 110s, and so when it's 97, we're like, oh it's nice, we're usually we're like oh, 97 is so hot, but all perspective noise not so much.

Shawna Rasch: 40:26

We have really pretty springs here, and so my dad and my husband actually have a brother-in-law getting ready to go do a golf tournament here in October, and so it was something I actually was going to kind of pay attention to what they're doing, because I think that is something we have these here a lot and they go over really well and being able to do a fundraiser of that event, and not only would proceeds come to us, but I would love to be able to collaborate with some of the other rescue organizations in the community and see if we can't make a community impact with something like that.

Heather Ross: 40:54

So that would be really cool because you can put a different organization at each hold.

Shawna Rasch: 41:02

Yep.

Shawna Rasch: 41:02

So, they raise prizes and raffles and what have you?

Shawna Rasch: 41:05

Yeah, so that is something that I'm looking at.

Shawna Rasch: 41:08

And then you know, the biggest needs right now is we have we have seven kitty cats that are ready here at the middle and end of September for their space and their neuters and their final bedding so they could be adopted out.

Shawna Rasch: 41:18

So it was raising funds for that to make sure we have it, so it's not coming out of my pocket. And then there are the T and R events that are coming up and they're also doing a vaccine clinic in our local area to which is where people in a pet they'll go to a low income area and they offer free vaccines and microchipping for dogs and cats. It's 15 feral and that group is amazing. Yeah, I've really appreciated becoming a part of that community with them and the things that they offer, because they go to the, you know, like Cleveland, texas, where they don't always have as much resources available to be able to take care of the animals that they do have, and education wise as well, and so it's just, it's really great to be a part of that effort, and so that means things that I have going on currently.

Heather Ross: 42:04

So many wonderful, amazing things happening I'm very excited for for all of us and on the journey that we're on and growing the things we're growing and stepping into who we are and being such amazing leaders. Thank you, ladies, so much for joining me today. Thank you for the opportunity this has been great.

Heather Ross: 42:25

And thank you to our audience for watching. I hope you got some amazing nuggets out of this and, of course, all of the contact information for these ladies will be down below in the description, ready for you. Thank you so much for joining us, namaste. Thank you so much. As entrepreneurs, we have a unique opportunity to make a positive impact in the world around us. In a time when the world is shifting towards supporting local businesses and embracing community driven initiatives, it becomes even more important for us to give where heart leads us at the table. We believe in the power of giving back and that's why we have our cause of the quarter. This quarter, we are proud to support perfect pals, a local organization dedicated to rescuing and providing care for stray cats in our community. By supporting local causes like perfect pals, we not only make a difference in the lives of those in need, but we also contribute to the growth and well being of our local community. We believe in small acts of kindness, and they can create a ripple effect of positivity, inspiring others to do the same. As we shift our focus solely from supporting large corporations to championing local businesses and giving back, we not only strengthen our community, but we also foster a sense of connection and unity. Together, we can create a thriving ecosystem where everyone can flourish. So let's follow our hearts and give where they, where it truly matters. Join in supporting perfect pals and making a difference in the lives of these furry companions. Together, we can make our community a better place, one act of kindness at a time. Thank you for being part of our journey and for embracing the spirit of giving. Together, let's create a brighter future for all.

Heather Ross: 44:32

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Heather Ross: 45:23

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