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One night makes a BIG difference for little kittens!
One night makes a BIG difference for little kittens!
What is an "overnight foster"?
What is an "overnight foster"?
Our overnight fosters are the A-Team when it comes to dealing with kitten emergencies! We have a list of fosters available on each day of the week, and rotate through them depending on availability and need. Each of the fosters on this list have agreed in advance to being contacted about short notice placements, and have reliable availability to come pick up kittens same-day – sometimes within the hour! They can choose to take the placement for just a night, a weekend, or whatever suits their schedule. This gives us more time to find a long-term foster placement using our plea emails and plea overflow spreadsheet.
Why do we need overnight fosters?
Why do we need overnight fosters?
The APA! Neonatal Program pulls kittens at risk of euthanasia from all over the city and the state, and kitten emergencies aren't limited to just our business hours! Because we are a foster-based program, we aren't generally able to house orphan kittens at the nursery overnight. This means that every kitten who comes into the nursery needs to find a foster same-day, even if they arrive right at closing time. We have an incredible base of fosters scanning our plea listings, but we can't always make those placements happen quickly enough to get the kittens to their fosters that day. Having our overnight fosters as a "buffer" gives us the ability to say YES to saving those urgent kittens whether we have a long-term foster placement for them or not!
What is required of a foster on the overnight rotation?
What is required of a foster on the overnight rotation?
We have a few different ways to join the rotation, but the main requirements for all of them is a flexible schedule, reliable transportation, and experience with a hand-feeding. The kittens that need overnight placements range from newborns to 8-week-old gruelies, and from zero medical needs to severe illnesses. Not every overnight foster is going to be a good fit for each kitten, so we have created a few different options for folks with various limitations on how they can help.
You can sign up for a specific day of the week to be on-call as our "primary" foster. This means you are very likely to say yes to whatever our urgent needs are that day, and will give advance notice if know that you will be unavailable.
You can sign up to be an "alternate" for a specific day/days of the week when you are likely, but not guaranteed, to be available. We contact our alternates when our primary foster for that day unavailable, or when we have more urgent placements than we have primary fosters.
You can sign up to be a "backup" foster if you don't have a specific day(s) of the week that you are usually available, but don't mind us asking! We contact our backups if/when we have already exhausted our options for primary and alternate fosters. This is a good fit if your schedule varies a lot, or if you have limitations on which ages, medical needs, or feeding types you are able to take.
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