
Alliance President, Jane Hoffman, and volunteers, Gurjinder Cheema and David Glicksman, get ready to move thousands of pounds of cat food into the vehicles of eager Certified TNR Caretakers at the most recent NYC Feral Cat Initiative giveaway on January 30, 2015. (Photo by Carol Zytnik)
Held in Queens, grateful caretakers from across the New York City area arrived for each giveaway at their pre-registered times to load up with free food for the felines in their care. They came by car, on foot, and even by taxi. Each participant left with lots of cat food, a big smile, and words of appreciation.
“Thanks for doing what you do with the food,” said one caretaker from a Staten Island non-profit that feeds approximately 60 community cats twice a day, every day. “It’s so important, and one of the most overlooked problems in the feral cat community—sometimes there just isn’t enough money to feed the cats, only to TNR them.”
Jane Hoffman, President of the Alliance, credits Certified TNR Caretakers with “really doing all the labor, mostly on their own dime. So this is the way we try to help them.”

Certified TNR Caretakers line up to have their cars loaded up with cat food by volunteers, John Iannuzzi and Gurjinder Cheema, and staff member, Kathleen O’Malley, at the NYC Feral Cat Initiative’s giveaway on December 12, 2015. (Photo by Maureen Smith)
Kathleen O’Malley, the NYCFCI’s Director of Education was pleased that the first giveaways were able to be scheduled “just as caretakers were getting ready for winter, because we recommend that caretakers feed wet food for the extra nutrition during the colder months.” Apparently community cats across the city were also pleased. After each giveaway, the NYCFCI received many notes of thanks from the cats themselves.
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