Due to a number of circumstances beyond their control, the Goathouse Refuge, is now in a dire state financially and needs funds for food, medicine, veterinarian costs, and a few essential staff who are caretakers for the cats as well as an office manager who has a broad range of responsibilities. If they do not receive money within the next week, they will be left with no other option than to close down. That would be a disaster for the many cats at the Refuge and would impact surrounding shelters as well. Without the funds to care for the cats, they will need to find new homes for them and many are considered unadoptable due to their ages, dispositions, health conditions or deformities. Many of the shelters in Chatham and surrounding counties are over-full and end up having to euthanize animals after a short period of time because of overcrowding. That would be the fate of the majority of the cats at the Refuge. These poor animals deserve better.
I first heard about The Goathouse Refuge, Inc. (the Refuge), a 501c3 organization formed in 2007, nearly 8 years ago and how it provided a cage-free sanctuary for cats without homes. They provided a beautiful, safe and loving environment for these poor creatures where they could live out the remainder of their lives if need be. Many people agree that this is how we should treat our “unwanted” pets, but few people have been willing to make the sacrifices necessary to create such an environment. The Founder and Executive Director, Siglinda Scarpa, has dedicated her land and most of her personal wealth as well as over 20 years of her life working 80+ hour weeks to provide this sanctuary. In January of this year I heard that she was having difficulties with keeping the Refuge going due to her health issues, which made it difficult to oversee operations leading to staffing and financial problems. She took out a reverse mortgage on her house to provide funds to run the Refuge. I had previously donated money and items to the Refuge, but now I felt that my efforts were also needed to help get the organization back on track. I volunteered my services and was requested to serve on the Board as well as take on the roles of Secretary and Treasurer.
The Goathouse Refuge plays a vital role in animal welfare in this region. Local shelters are under intense pressure, and many un-homed animals are euthanized (approximately 25,000 cats per year in NC) simply because there is not enough space. The Refuge has helped to alleviate this pressure by accepting cats from these shelters and providing a cage-free sanctuary where they can be cared for and thrive until adoptive homes are found, or, in the case of unadoptable animals, until they live out their natural lives in comfort and safety.
The Refuge is currently working through a series of challenges stemming from Siglinda’s health issues and prior staffing failures—factors that were largely beyond her control. Several years ago in 2023, Siglinda suffered a heart attack and required open-heart surgery. During the time she was away in the hospital and afterwards when she was recovering, some staff took advantage of her inability to provide oversight by stealing from her and severely neglecting their duties. She has never fully recovered health-wise and the Refuge has not recovered from this period of mismanagement in 2023-2024. She is 85 now and suffers from a debilitating blood disorder that requires regular transfusions. She still has staffing problems plus a mess to clean up from that period where she was unable to oversee operations. The rather remote location of the Refuge makes it more difficult to find and keep good workers. I am working with Siglinda as well as the current office manager who has been there less than 1 year and various volunteers to discover and deal with problems resulting from the matters that fell through the cracks during that tumultuous time.
Some of the previous staff who stole property, severely neglected their duties and were fired when this was discovered, retaliated by reporting deficiencies at the Refuge, many of which they were responsible for, to the NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, who are responsible for licensing shelters. This resulted in a series of inspections followed with multiple Notices of Violations, a $9,300 fine and suspension of the shelter registration in December of 2025. Work was commenced at the Refuge to correct the deficiencies, but trying to deal with those as well as other problems resulting from the 2023-4 period of neglect has been an overwhelming task. The staff already had full schedules cleaning and caring for the cats. Brandy Alexander, a local realtor and good Samaritan, stepped up and organized several Volunteer Days to fix various issues and helped to get many other things done. She even took a month off from work to focus on helping the Refuge. I volunteered not long after she went back to work.
Although a vast amount of work has been done to correct the violations, there is still more to do. Several of the issues stem from the different nature of the Refuge compared to other shelters, which typically have one building with cages and little to no outdoor space. The regulations are designed to deal with that sort of model. The Refuge has several buildings and nearly 2 acres of land surrounded by a very tall fence with the top curved over inward to prevent the cats from being able to climb it to escape. This property is within a larger fenced in farm that has an additional electric fence surrounding it to keep out predators. There are numerous trees on the property, and the ones near the fence have a slick surface attached to them so the cats can't climb them and get over the fence. I encourage you to go to the website (https://www.goathouserefuge.org/) to learn more and see pictures of the Refuge property and many of the cats. There are also 2 wonderful videos about Siglinda and the Refuge created by Stewart Nelson you can see here (https://vimeo.com/177384954; https://vimeo.com/1163663978).
The suspension prohibited the Refuge from taking in anymore cats until it was lifted. Siglinda saw where another shelter had a pregnant cat who was to be euthanized, and she asked me if there was anything she could do. I told her that she could adopt the cat for herself, just not for the Refuge. She did that but she didn't understand what I said. She brought the cat home and filled out a Refuge adoption form adopting the cat from the Refuge. I didn't know that had happened but the Dept. of Agriculture found out and sent us a Notice of Intent to Revoke Shelter Registration. We were given 5 days to respond or our registration would be revoked and they would remove all of the cats and put them in local shelters! I requested and was granted additional time to respond. I was already working on a response to address the various notices. It took a huge amount of time to prepare and the 64-page document was submitted. I don't know when we will hear back on that.
Just to give you an idea of some of what we have had to do to try to get into compliance with the law, the NC Animal Welfare Act requires that the cats can't have access to WOOD! Fortunately, the Refuge was grandfathered in regarding having trees. We still have had to cover wood beams, lower walls and baseboards, doors and door jambs, cabinets, etc. with a slick material that can be cleaned & sanitized easily. Also, the ground has to be covered with gravel at least 6” deep. It would have cost over $20,000 just to buy and have delivered the amount of gravel needed to cover all of the ground of the Refuge property. We decided to create a new fence line to make the property that the cats have access to smaller in an effort to come into compliance with this law. We have bought a total of 12 truckloads of gravel and volunteers have spread it on the ground at the property. It's still not enough.
The AWA requires that the cats can't have access to electrical outlets. I'm not sure how cats can get shocked by outlets, but we have to keep them covered. We have some cages to keep cats that need to be observed for some medical reason & many of those had some rust on them so we had to sand and paint them. The wooden stands they were on had to be replaced with metal ones. Another requirement that we haven't had enough staff to meet is the documentation daily of cat enrichment activities. The cats receive a lot of daily human attention from staff, volunteers and from the public who come during visiting hours to spend time with the cats. There are lots of toys for the cats and all but the relatively few who are in cages can roam free and go outdoors or on an enclosed patio and socialize with other cats (they are separated into groups depending on dispositions, etc.). There have been many more issues to deal with, but you get the idea. It's ongoing but must be finished before our time for license renewal in June. We still need more money for that as well as the $9300 fine and shelter registration renewal fee.
While dealing with these problems, in March, our Office Manager learned that the Solicitation License had not been renewed when a donor kindly alerted her that the license had expired. She immediately submitted the renewal application online and paid $1,002, which included the $800 late fee. However, shortly thereafter we received the Notification to Cease and Desist Charitable Solicitation Until Licensed from the Assistant Attorney General. The Notification references an Administrative Order dated September 3, 2024, which it states was sent to The Goathouse Refuge. When asked, neither Siglinda nor the Office Manager were aware of this Administrative Order and there was no record of it in our files. It was another thing that fell through the cracks because of negligent staff. We got it resolved and had to pay another $400 fine, but it took time during which we were prohibited from soliciting donations in NC. This put us in an even greater bind.
That's not all but that's enough to give you an idea of what we have been and are facing and how hard we have worked to try to get everything back on track. Please donate and give as much money as you can. We also have a silent auction going on at the following site: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/goathouse-refuge-incs-silent-auction. There are several one-of-a-kind pieces, artwork, jewelry, pottery, etc. If you don't want to donate, maybe you could buy something. If you can't donate but can volunteer, please check out our website for instructions on how to do so (https://www.goathouserefuge.org/). I have provided below a list of places to get more information about the Refuge. Hopefully, our social media accounts are back online after having to remove them because of the solicitation issue. Please pass along a link to this GoFundMe page to everyone who you can think of. Your assistance in any form is greatly appreciated!
Relevant Websites:
Organizer
The Goathouse Refuge Inc.
Beneficiary