Our Accomplishments

We are able to help find free homes to any friendly cat found in any city if the rescuer fosters the cat and feeds at North Bergen PetSmart only once per week until the cat goes to a home.

• We have placed over 500 cats in homes from 2020-2023 in spite of the COVID pandemic.

• We foster most pregnant cats and kittens we find with the help of our volunteers, including more than 90 kittens in 2023 alone.

• We feed more than 70 colonies (colonies, not cats) every night.

• In 2020, 2021, and 2022, we  received the Platinum Seal of Transparency, their highest rating, received by less that 0.5% of the non profit organizations in the US, from GuideStar.org, which rates the financial management of non profit organizations. Here is our profile in GuideStar : https://www.guidestar.org/profile/46-2849022 and links to our receipts and expenses which can be viewed anytime.

• We  have spent more than $370,000 of our own money ($74,037 in 2023) helping the cats, mostly in vet care. $11,600 in vet care over only two and half months of 2023. Almost every week we bring sick cats to the vets. 7 cats to the vet the first week of Dec 2023, mostly for fixing.

• We have ZERO administrative fees whatsoever!

• We are the only group with cats at North Bergen PetSmart, which allows us to find homes to all friendly cats.

• We have operated continuously for more than 12 straight years, since 2012.

This is the situation a few of us found in September 2012 when we tried to fix the colony on 19th street: No holding space to bring the cats before and after surgery, no traps, no drop trap, no crates, no dividers, no non-profit status (501c3), no grants, no access to the income and expenses from the group, only four members attended the monthly meeting, we were paying 15% of the donations as administrative fees, no Union City pick up of cats to be fixed, strained relations with local elected officials, and surprisingly and disappointingly the individuals that were leading the efforts were opposed to applying to non-profit status and to applying for grants. They also asked us to give them 15% of all donations and no one knew what they were doing with the donations. In addition, local officials were skeptical and hesitant to support cat activities because past donations of traps had resulted in all traps being unaccounted for, a non-profit organization was not formed, and no grant was applied to (everything donated by local officials was lost). There were also many long and unproductive meetings with few accomplishments.

Our most important accomplishment is that we are now placing more than 150 homeless cats in homes each year. See our Facebook site, www.facebook.com/ucfcc  , for pictures and details of those cats.  See also our below  newsletters for profiles of our rescue cats.