Update 4/10/2023:

We have been issued our temporary Veterinary Establishment permit! This is required in order to open our clinic in any capacity. We must undergo and pass an inspection before our permanent permit will be issued.

Currently, we are waiting to hear when our inspection will take place. We have purchased many of the necessary items already, but we still have some more things that we must have in order to pass the inspection. In particular, we still need to buy our anesthesia & oxygen machines, signage for the outside of the building, and emergency lighting. Our original campaign goal was $4,000, but the estimate (see pictures) for our machine came back higher than expected at $4,965, so we have raised it to $6,000. This gives us enough money to purchase the machine & a little extra for signage, lighting, and other small necessities.

Your donations will go directly towards helping us purchase these necessary items in order to pass our inspection. We are waiting for one additional permit to come back that will allow us to purchase vaccines, antibiotics, etc., and then we will be able to move towards opening as a low-cost wellness & urgent care clinic. Your help is so greatly appreciated!

Update 4/3/2023:

We recently received news that will delay our ability to open for surgery in April. One of our required permits will take much longer to process than expected, and we cannot operate on cats until we have that permit. It will likely take several months to receive this permit, so we have had to rework our plan for the interim.

To provide some benefit to the community and stay afloat financially, we will open as an Urgent Care & Wellness Clinic for felines only. The clinic will offer low-cost services such as vaccinations, testing, exams, bloodwork, and treatment of minor illnesses, wounds, and infections. Operating hours for the clinic will be announced in the near future.

While we hope to have an overwhelming demand for the urgent care/wellness clinic, it is unlikely to cover all our costs. Between the rescue and the clinic, our average monthly costs (including rent, utilities, and everything for the cats) is around $5,000. We also will still have to buy our remaining equipment and supplies for surgery. After our last fundraiser, we had hoped to not have to ask for your monetary support for a good while, but the odds did not fall in our favor. Despite this setback, we hope you will continue to support us as you are able. You can help by sharing our information, donating, volunteering, or donating items.

The cat community in Northeast Florida need us badly, so we are not giving up and will continue to do whatever it takes to get Ancient City Cat Coalition open in its full capacity. We hope you will continue to help us reach our goal.

Original Campaign:

Over the last 4 months, we've been hard at work fundraising, recruiting staff and volunteers, purchasing supplies and equipment, and planning for the opening of Ancient City Cat Coalition. With the help of our community, we have raised enough money to buy most of our equipment and supplies needed for initial operations. We are in the home stretch now and plan to open on April 18th, 2023 - but we need your help to reach that goal.

The final pieces of equipment we must acquire before opening is an anesthesia machine and an oxygen machine. We have found one machine that will fulfill both of these requirements, but it costs about $4,000.

Once we have this machine, we will be ready to start fixing, vaccinating, and microchipping cats. We have hired an experienced veterinarian and veterinary technician, who will operate on about 20 cats per day to start, with a potential to increase to about 30 per day. We have already applied for our state permits and are just waiting for it to be issued. All other equipment and initial supplies have already been purchased, and our volunteers are hard at work setting up the surgery suite and recovery room.

We have crunched the numbers and put together a plan for Ancient City Cat Coalition to be completely self-sustaining once we are open and operating at our full capacity. While our surgery packages will be low-cost and comparable to other low-cost clinics in the area, our margins will be high enough to pay our staff, pay our bills, buy supplies, and maintain an emergency fund in case of slow weeks or unexpected closings. Donations made after opening will help us fund other programs, such as a pet food bank and grant programs for local feral colony caretakers.

We know that times are hard and that we have asked for a lot from our supporters over the last few months. But we just need your help one more time, and then we will be ready to start the lifesaving work that is the core of our mission: spaying and neutering cats to reduce feline overpopulation and reducing the suffering of cats in northeast Florida.

Every donation makes a difference and is important to us, no matter the size. Your support is so greatly appreciated, and we cannot start saving lives without your help. Even if you aren't in a position to donate right now, just sharing our fundraiser via social media or speaking about us to a friend is a great help to us. Please donate to help us reach our goal of $4,000 to purchase our last piece of equipment and get Ancient City Cat Coalition up and running.

Ancient City Cat Coalition Needs Your Help!

Team Members