Hello, my name is Michelle and I'm the Founder and Executive Director of Feline Community Network in Hobart, IN. FCN is a specialty organization that helps friendly stray cats found sick or injured and those cats potentially facing euthanasia at local shelters and animal controls.

We've been rescuing cats since 2015 across Lake & Porter County while also occasionally helping cats in the surrounding counties. The current location of FCN is a rental property that a small handful of volunteers retrofitted over 3yrs ago. Originally a cold storage unit, with a vision, volunteers and community donations, a worn-down building was turned into the sanctuary we have today.

The estimated 5,000-square-foot building was designed to house up to 125 cats. Currently, we are at an all-time low due to a lack of continued funding, staff, donors, and slow adoptions. The cats that need rescue are out there. We just do not have the ability to take on any more at this time. The focus has been shifted to caring for the cats that are currently in-house, including expensive procedures like dental work. We are blessed to have amazing veterinary teams offsite, and our medical suite, which helps us care for the many medical cases that we normally take in annually. To date FCN has saved hundreds of cats & kittens that otherwise would have had unknown fates, and who would have been euthanized for behavioral issues, medical issues, and space.

The community has made this all happen from day one and we couldn't be more grateful. However, lately, we've noticed a reduction in overall support. While we somehow managed to survive Covid, 2023 might be the ultimate end of FCN unless we can secure sustainable funding. Currently the majority of our funding has been from Facebook donations and general fundraisers. Our hope is that our Gofundme will help us raise much-needed funds and be able to reach additional community members that are willing to help.

Monthly bills like commercial insurance, rent, utilities, payroll, taxes, and the largest expense of veterinary care exceeds $15,000.00 and therefore, with these expenses we can only afford to pay staff just above minimum wage. As of today 4/5/23 payroll for this week might not even be made. In the future, we'd love to have funding that would allow us to include hiring either a licensed veterinary technician or veterinary assistant that can tend to the cats in our care, additional office staff, and provide a better wage to our caregivers.

Donating to our Gofundme today will help our doors remain open for another day, we have past-due bills, collections, payroll, and with our current checking account balance it's not looking good. Our lease ends in July, if we cannot find a way to sustain ourselves our lease will end. The team and I have the drive, knowledge, and ideas, and want to help as many cats as we can but we are missing something. Please tell me that YOU will help us secure our place in NW Indiana where cats need us every day.