Shelter Care:

We need responsible people to come in the evenings to care for the cats. The night shift runs from late afternoon/early evening for a couple hours, minimum of one hour up to maximum of 3 hours, depending on your schedule.  It includes feeding the cats nightly treats, scooping litter boxes, sweeping, putting the cats “to bed” and other shelter maintenance.  Volunteers usually sign up to do one night a week.

Adoption Center Assistant and Care

We have cats 24/7 at the adoption center at Petsmart in Gilroy, Petco at Blossom Hill, Petco in Morgan Hill, Petsmart on Curtner, and Pets Delight in Los Altos.  We need volunteers to go to these locations every day and take care of the cats there.  This includes cleaning the cages, scooping the litter boxes, making sure there is food.....and most importantly, letting the cats out of the cages to run around in the visiting room for awhile and stretch their legs.  This whole process usually takes about 1, maybe 1 and a half hours.   However, we need people who will commit and be responsible every week.  There are no set hours for this.  The volunteer could go in the morning, afternoon, evening, as long as someone visits the site at least once a day.  Volunteers usually sign up to do one day a week. 

Foster Homes:

Foster homes are always desperately needed at Town Cats to provide housing, food and love for the hundreds of cats that come through Town Cats each year. With kitten season every spring and summer, the need is greater than ever, especially if you can socialize feral kittens or care for preweans. The following are categories from which to choose the type of kitty you want to foster:

1.  Age (prewean bottle fed, young kitten, teenager, young adult, older adult)

2.  Sex (male or female - always spayed or neutered if over 10 weeks of age)

3.  Number (one single kitty, a small litter, a large litter, multiple cats/litters)

4.  Special Needs (Treating sickness, recouping after surgery, socializing ferals

In general, foster homes provide food, water, litter and love. Town Cats provides any medical needs, and permanent supplies (litterbox, toys, scratching post).  Town Cats will provide food and litter etc. as needed too though.

Adoption Fair Assistant

Adoption fairs are the best tool we have for getting our kittens and cats shown to the public for adoption. We hold adoption fairs in various locations throughout Santa Clara County.  There is nothing better seeing a kitty find a forever home.  Volunteers are needed to do adoptions and assist in filling out adoption applications and interviews.  We also need help to transport cats from MH to San Jose fairs and between the fair locations.

Phone Calls

Town Cats receives anywhere from 5 to 25 phone calls a day from the public needing help, or advice on everything from feral cats, to kittens, to wanting to adopt.  We strive to give the public good customer service.  This means returning phone calls in a timely manner.  We need volunteers willing to take messages from the voicemail, enter them into our online phone log, and return phone calls on a regular basis.  We may not have the answers, but most people are just thankful to have received a return call. 

Fundraising

Since Town Cats relies specifically on donations and fund raising for operating costs, we need volunteers willing to help in this area.  Fund raising could include Grant Writing, planning fund raising events, helping with direct mailing projects or other fund raising methods. 

Newsletter

Town Cats publishes a newsletter twice a year.  Volunteers are needed to help develop content, design and layout the newsletter as well as help with mailing.

Web page/Social Networking/Technology

Town Cats needs individuals with knowledge and experience in the area of Social Networking and Technology.  We need volunteers willing to develop and maintain our web page, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.  In addition, volunteers interested in working in this area will be responsible for maintaining our email newsletter and online donation system. 

Data Entry

Town Cats maintains a web based database of all adopters, donors, volunteers, and cats.  We need help entering all new adoptions into our system as well as updating addresses of supporters. 

Socialization:

We have quite a few long term residents as well as newcomers going through adjustment period who need one-on-one time with a volunteer to become more comfortable being touched and held. This can be done in a foster home situation, as time spent at the site of the current foster home for the cat, or at our shelter for the cats residing here. Instruction on methods will be provided. Hours are midday and you can stay as long as you like between the morning and night shifts.  This is generally not available for younger volunteers or teenagers. 

Trapping Projects

The majority of calls we receive are asking for assistance with trapping and neutering feral cats or capturing and placing their offspring (feral kittens) before they are too wild.  Town Cats works on feral cat trapping projects throughout Santa Clara County, from Gilroy to Sunnyvale.  This is perhaps our most critical work to reduce the cat overpopulation problem.  Training is available for volunteers interested in helping with this important job. 

Cat Transport

Do you enjoy driving and meeting new people? Then this may be the position for you. We currently need people in the south county and San Jose areas who are able to transport cats to/from private homes to veterinary offices for spay/neuter surgeries. We provide this as a service to low income, disabled, senior or other people who are unable to take their cats into the veterinary office themselves, but who wish to have them fixed.

Feral Colony Caretaker

Feral colony caretakers are responsible for traveling to feral cat colony locations and providing food, clean water and protection from bad weather for the cats that live in the colony.  Some caretakers build elaborate shelters for their feral cats to live in, while others use a discarded board to protect the food/water station. Some colonies are fed every day, while others only need to be checked twice a week. Caretakers are also asked to keep a log of the cats that are a part of their colony, and assist in the trapping, neutering and re-releasing of the cats to their colony.  Town Cats maintains colonies in Gilroy, Morgan Hill and south San Jose, and always needs volunteers to maintain existing colonies, or to assist with the establishment of new colonies, as needed.