Street Kitty Medical Fund

Any kitty caretaker will tell you, it’s tough enough to raise money to help feed Baltimore’s street colonies, let alone find funding to address their medical and dental care. Currently, that job falls on a handful of angels who are already stretched to the max donating their time and money to provide basic care for kitties that have been abandoned, dumped by their families or born into a life on the streets. To address this need, Show Your Soft Side is setting aside $100,000 annually to provide medical assistance for feral, stray, abandoned, and community cats in the Baltimore area. Please review the guidelines below and submit the application.

Guidelines

In 2019, Show Your Soft Side (SYSS) created a Medical Assistance Fund to assist community cat caretakers living in the Baltimore area with extraordinary medical expenses for feral, stray, abandoned, and community cats.

Demands for assistance from our Medical Fund have grown dramatically each year, and without an endowment, underwriter, or other funding source, the current demand is not sustainable for our small, all-volunteer non-profit. Beginning in January 2023, we must limit funding requests to community cats in the following zip codes, which historically have represented the areas of greatest need: 21201, 21202, 21205, 21206, 21207, 21209,21210, 21211, 21212, 21213, 21214, 21215, 21216, 21217, 21218, 21220, 21221, 21222, 21223, 21224, 21225, 21226, 21227, 21229, 21230, 21231, 21237, 21239 and 21287. Unfortunately, we can no longer accept requests outside these zip codes.

Please read these guidelines before submitting an application for funding.

If you suspect a feral, stray or community cat has been the victim of animal abuse, immediately call 311 or your local animal control. If you witness a cat being abused, call 911 immediately.
The SYSS Street Kitty Medical Fund (Fund) is limited to feral, stray, abandoned, and community cats. The Fund will not be used to treat cats that either have homes or live indoors/outdoors.
The Fund will pay for emergency and/or urgent care necessary to alleviate suffering and/or improve the quality of life for community cats. Funding requests for routine care, such as spay/neuter surgeries, vaccinations, deworming, flea treatments, etc. will not be considered. In the event, however, a caretaker seeks treatment for a sick or injured cat that is unaltered, the cat will be neutered or spayed as a condition for treatment, at SYSS’s expense. Caretakers will be obligated to pay for the necessary rabies vaccination.
Funding decisions will only be considered prospectively and with partner veterinarians*. We will discuss with you your options for emergency care, dental procedures and surgeries. Please do not contact us after making an appointment with your personal veterinarian, as these requests will not be considered.
Prior to any veterinary care being rendered, please confirm that the treating veterinarian has scanned any cat for a microchip. Show Your Soft Side cannot cover veterinary treatment for owned cats.
The maximum disbursement for any individual cat is $1,000. Disbursements will be made directly to veterinary hospitals after funding has been approved and treatment is scheduled. Disbursements are never paid directly to individuals.
If necessary, SYSS will cover the cost of humane euthanasia and cremation. Caretakers are responsible for the additional costs of private cremation.
Given the high volume of requests, SYSS utilizes a team of Board members to respond to medical fund requests on a rotating schedule. We ask that you not contact individual Board members except in a true emergency. Please note that most requests submitted after 9 pm will not be reviewed until the following morning.
SYSS will use its best efforts to allocate funds responsibly each year. SYSS reserves the right to deny funding for any reason, including failure to comply with these guidelines, but will not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, age, gender identity, religion or other factors protected by federal law.
Funding requests exceed the resources available for this Medical Fund and SYSS is immensely grateful to caretakers who assist with online fundraising, which makes this Fund sustainable. Caretakers are expected to engage in supplementary fundraising when veterinary expenditures for a particular cat exceeds $1,000.
SYSS cannot consider requests for community cats outside of the zip codes listed above.

*Partner veterinarians include Aardmore Animal Hospital, Academy Animal Hospital, Animal Birth Control, LLC, Carney Animal Hospital, Cat Sense Feline Hospital, Essex Middle River Veterinary Care, Evergreen Veterinary Clinic, Everhart Animal Hospital, Everhart WellPet Center, Homeward Bound Veterinary Services, Howard County Animal Hospital, Metro Ferals/Green Acres Pet Center, Seibel Veterinary Services, Spay Now, Timonium Animal Hospital, Urgent Vet Care Cockeysville, Vinson Animal Hospital and You’ll Never Walk Alone.

Funding Request Form

All fields marked “*” are required.

Name*

Email*

Street Address*

City*
Zip Code*

Phone*

Non-Profit 501(c)(3) Organization (if applicable)

Cat's name*

Male or Female

Spayed/Neutered

Approximate age*

Colony location

Colony zip code

Caretaker name

Caretaker email

Caretaker phone
Caretaker zip code

TNR advocate name

TNR advocate email

TNR advocate phone

What medical care are you seeking?

Estimated cost of procedure

Source and amount of any other financial contribution

Select from one of our partner veterinarians*

Do you authorize Show Your Soft Side to contact your treating veterinarian?*

Are you eligible to receive a rescue discount?*

Do you authorize Show Your Soft Side to use photos of you and any colony cats that we help treat on our website and on social media?

How did you hear about us?

I have reviewed the guidelines and agree to be bound by them.*