A total of 118 cats have been adopted thanks to a partnership between Milky & Coco’s Kit-tea Cafe and Furry Friends Cat Shelter.
“I’m thrilled that we have this partnership with the cat cafe,” said Furry Friends board of directors member Diane Stevens. “It gives another opportunity for the public to come and see our cats.”
Milky & Coco’s Kit-tea Cafe opened in late July off of Mill Plain Boulevard in Vancouver and is the first cat cafe in Clark County.
At the cafe, people can pay for an hourlong session to meet, play with and even hold the cats. Additionally, every cat is up for adoption through Furry Friends.
“We supply all the cats, and usually there’s 25 or more there at any given time,” said Furry Friends Executive Director Jenn Hutchman. “We supply the cat food, litter, the volunteers to clean up after and feed the cats, bedding, cat trees, basically anything the cats need.”
Furry Friends’ partnership with the cafe is classified as foster housing, which allows the shelter to retain responsibility for the cats’ needs, including supplies and medical care.
“We want to make sure that we’re still consistently there for our cats,” Hutchman said.
Having the cafe house and care for the cats allows Furry Friends to take in more cats and give them more exposure to potential adopters.
One thing that has caught the shelter staff by surprise is how many adult cats have been adopted from the location, rather than kittens.
“There’s been some adoptions there that would not have happened here,” Hutchman said. “The cafe really is giving these cats a better chance of finding homes.”
The partnership with Milky & Coco’s has strengthened the shelter’s connection to the community and provided another avenue for addressing the large influx of cats.
According to Stevens, there are thousands of cats in Clark County, and many of the cats the shelter has taken in are from hoarding situations.
One factor contributing to the increase in cats across the county can be traced to the effects COVID-19 had on veterinary clinics and the services they provided.
“The spay and neuter services were halted, and so there were a lot more kittens created. Now those ones are having kittens,” Hutchman said.
With such a high number of cats needing care, the organization has continued to grow since it started.
Though there are only two part-time staff members and two full-time staff members, the number of volunteers has reached 280.
“We have grown within the last six or seven years. Back then, to adopt out 200 cats was a big deal. This last year we adopted out 1,000 cats,” Stevens said. “She’s getting calls every day for people to give us their cats.”
While Furry Friends was established in 2020, its ability to help stray cats and provide medical care has continued to grow.
Within the last year, the shelter has arranged procedures such as amputations and the removal of a bullet from a cat’s head.
“We partner with all the veterinarians around here, which means we can get a rescue deal on certain surgeries,” Hutchman said.
The organization is developing a dedicated medical building where it hopes to hire a full-time veterinarian.
A big difference that shapes the way Furry Friends operates compared with other shelters, such as the Humane Society, is its funding model.
“They’re funded by large grants, large donors. They have this open pool of funding, but we don’t have contracts with anybody,” Hutchman said. “It’s all just from our community, which I think is amazing, because then that empowers everybody out there to know that their money can make a difference.”
At the center of the shelter’s mission is the desire to help the community and stray cats at the same time.
“We try to focus on the ones that need us the most and the ones that are in someone’s home, they don’t need us that much,” Hutchman said.
Another difference between Furry Friends and the Humane Society is that Furry Friends does not accept owner-surrendered cats.
Instead, Furry Friends prioritizes cases involving cats the organization takes in, including cats abandoned in apartments, left in carriers at parks and kittens found in car engines.
“There’s so many that need our help that we can’t ignore those ones by taking in owner relinquishments,” Hutchman said.
According to Stevens and Hutchman, there are several things people can do to help address the problem.
First, if you’re taking care of a stray cat, get it spayed or neutered, especially if it’s a male.
Second, if you have a cat, keep it indoors.
Third, adopt one of the cats from the shelter and give it a good home.
“Anybody that’s looking for a cat, they can always go to our website and there’s a button they can push there to see what cats are adoptable,” Stevens said.
Furry Friends is a nonprofit organization established to care for stray, abused and abandoned cats throughout Clark County.
For information about them visit furryfriendswa.org or email them at information@furryfriendswa.org.
Milky & Coco’s Kit-tea Cafe is Vancouver’s first cat cafe located at 5000 E Fourth Plain Blvd #103 Vancouver, WA 98661.
The cafe’s hours of operation are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily and closes at 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
