URRKNeers it is our mission to have a part in the Animal Rescue community by helping kitties get to their forever homes. We are a national 501c3 organization that has been able to also take part in international Transports because our goal is to be worldwide. We have helped over 250 kitties (and 1 barker) get home in the 2 short years since our foundation. In that time we have only had one kitty, Cali, get away during the Transport process. While in the animal transport business this is a phenomenal record it was devastating for us as our goal is to get every kitty home. Those that have followed and participated in the search for Cali know what we did and have continued to do in trying to recover Cali. Our founder, Tina LaBlanc, was personally on site within 8 hours of Cali getting away and stayed for 9 days to initiate and conduct search operations and blanket the community in flyers, a telephonic and electronic Pet Amber Alert and other lost pet services and to make lasting personal contacts in the area in case we were not able to find her in the first week so that the search could continue. Most of you understand cat behavior enough to know that a cat that is used to being outdoors will adapt to new surroundings and make it their new territory. We knew that if we did not find her quickly we would have to continue the search through the information we were able to get out to the area she escaped and the active contacts we made in the area who would help gain her trust and recapture her if there was another sighting. We have partnered with the Stray Cat Alliance to help keep track of the local shelters and provide area support if there are new sightings. We contacted the local shelters, the local media and made a national call to all our members for sharing and support. We set up a hotline people in the area could call if they were able to go to the area to search so that they could coordinate with anyone else that was searching at that time. We made several personal and private pleas to every member in the greater L.A. area to donate time for the physical search. The Stray Cat Alliance put together gift baskets with Cali’s information to distribute to housing area we thought Cali might have settled in. We were able to acquire a trail cam to try and document a sighting and we consulted and worked with an organization that has a tracking dog. Most if not all of you are aware of this and the many other things we have done. As many of you who have signed up to become a Conductor recently know we have changed our Conductor Code of Conduct and Volunteer Waiver to better clarify the handling of our precious passengers. We have of course apologized both publicly and privately for this unfortunate accident. We need to be clear that the Bed & Breakfast made a mistake in judgment that allowed Cali to escape it was not an intentional act of misconduct and although in our view preventable it was still an accident. The B&B hostess has since left the group because of this incident. I have restated all the above information because as some of you may have seen there is a group of offended people who claim most of the above information did not happen even though we have posted updates both here and the Rally for Cali page consistently throughout this whole ordeal. The last and most distressing are the claims we have used Cali for profit. As a 501c3 our books are accessible and we normally require that an interested party make a formal request by mail so that a formal and professional accounting can be sent. We are a business but we do not have an accountant on retainer and it takes time to fulfill these requests so we require written and track-able inquiries. In this case only we want to show our membership what has taken place. In response to Cali being lost and realizing the expenses being incurred due to the level of response we wanted to perform, we created the Emergency Transport Fund. This was done because we plan on helping rescued kitties for a very long time and we realized this was not our first emergency and would not be our last. So we needed to be prepared financially. We did not start a specific fund for Cali because we knew we needed to prepare for all emergencies not just the current one. Here is a breakdown of what was raised: Donations to the Emergency Transport Fund $736.00 Funds to the Fund that also mentioned Cali: $787.00 (including $20 the was specifically earmarked for reward) Expenses related to search (food and lodging for 9 day stay in search area, Pet Amber Alert, flyers, search equipment, reimbursed $125 to Devin for the cabin fee for Cali, etc.) $1543.89 As you can see that was a $20.89 deficit for just this emergency and not establishing the fund for future emergencies. This is not a specific push for this particular URRKN fund but more to say we understand we are a business and we will willingly incur expenses to accomplish our mission and that we are a non-profit and running at a deficit is not abnormal. In conclusion, we want to thank every URRKNeer for the help and support in the search for Cali because we know that the vast majority here understand the difficulties searching for a nocturnal kitty that may not be looking to be found. Also if we are allowed we would like to continue the search efforts as we have made great contacts in the area. We cannot allow a small group of people to try and destroy URRKN because they are hurt and offended. We have thousands of volunteers and will transport thousands of kitties, invariably the unexpected will happen and we will have to learn and grow.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 19:59:35 +0000
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