Kitten Rescue

       This week I learned a lot about the social media aspect that goes into fundraising for a non-profit organization. I wrote an email for fundraising on behalf of Pink Paws For The Cause to thank the people that donated in the past year and a half. I also created posts for the adoption of specific kittens. I think this was important for me to experience, because without technology, the reach of the organization would be very limited, and it would be a lot harder to get the kittens adopted. I also think that many people would be far less educated on the topic of overpopulation and I think awareness is important with a social issue such as this. My week was either very slow, or very busy, which was both good and bad.      It was nice to get a break of sorts when times were slower, but it could be very overwhelming when all of the sudden things ramped up, and I was needed in multiple places at once. There were many surprises, such as the sudden arrival of 13 kittens, which was incompr

 Monday May 22, 2023 11:33 am PST I went to Fremont and had to try and bottle feed the newborn kittens bc the mom was getting surgery and we didn’t want them to die. I was terrified because they were so tiny, and at that age, their eyes aren’t even open and they still can’t hear. I had to stay with them at Devi’s house in Fremont while she drove to pick up the mom from the vet so they could eat. She then had to drop off 6 of the 13 other kittens at the shelter, so I basically had to babysit the newborn kittens. 5 hours total : 88

 Sunday May 21, 2023 11:28 am PST Today I went to Fremont again to help take care of the thirteen kittens. I first fed them and gave them more medicine because some of them were still sick. Then, I took photos of some of the kittens to be sent to the shelter and posted them on the organization’s social media accounts. A cat that Devi had picked up on Friday to take to the shelter, completely separate from the other ones, started giving birth, and we didn’t know what to do considering no one knew it was pregnant. I did not really enjoy this part of the day because a cat giving birth was just too much to witness, so we left it alone for a bit to feed the local cats, before coming back and checking on the cat. It had 5 kittens, so then we had to call the vet for help. It turned out that the mom had an infection so she got surgery and I stayed in Fremont until Devi returned. Hours: 10 Total: 83

Saturday May 20, 2023 11:25 am PST Today I went to Devi’s house in Fremont. Someone had dropped off three different litters of kittens at her house that morning that she needed help caring for until she could get them into a shelter, since they were very young (around 3 weeks old), and some of them were also sick. The first thing I did was give them all baths since they needed to be clean to take photos of, so people would want to adopt them. I fed them all and administered antibiotics. Some of them were too young to be eating solid food, so I had to go pick up the Mom so they could nurse. This took awhile to get done but once I did, I needed to feed them again and give them more medicine. Today I also helped Devi contact shelters to find room for them. 12 hours Total: 73

 Friday May 19, 2023 11:22 am PST I started out the day feeding abandoned kittens in Menlo Park again. This took awhile since there were more spots to feed at than previous days. Next, I went onto Nextdoor to promote the social media aspect of the rescue kittens needing to be adopted. Finally, I went to 9Lives in Redwood City, where I volunteered until closing. I enjoyed today because volunteering at the shelter was a different experience in comparison to the rest of my week so far.  3 hours Total: 61

 Thursday May 18, 2023 11:19 am PST The first thing I did today was feed the cats in Menlo Park for my mentor. I went to seven different locations and put dry and wet food there. I also gave them water. I then drove to my mentor’s house to drop off medication for some cats. I then went to pick up more food for feeding because I had run out. I then edited photos I had taken at the adoption fair last week for social media promotion. Lastly, I wrote an email for fundraising on behalf of the organization to thank people for donating to Pink Paws in the past year which took awhile to write.  4 hours Total: 58

  Wednesday, May 17, 2023 9:04 pm PST      In the mid-morning today I went to back one of my mentor’s colleague’s house, Devi, in Fremont. Immediately after walking in the door, I could see how much progress two of her foster kittens have made since the first time I saw them, at the beginning of last week. Originally, even just walking by their crates always caused at least one of them to hiss, and they were not nearly friendly enough to pet. But today, they were both running around in the living room and let me pick them each up. We wanted to try and take photos of them that can be used to promote their adoption when the time comes, especially because it’s looking like they’ll be able to be adopted sooner than later at the increasing rate of growth (physically and socially). I took a few photos of the girl kitten and attempted to take some of the boy, but he was too hyper and was not interested in staying still so I only got a couple that will have to probably be taken again. After th

  Tuesday May 16, 2023 7:54 pm PST In comparison to the past week or so, today was somewhat of a slower day for senior project. At the same time, my schedule definitely had an earlier start at about 7:30 am or so. There were four kittens in San Jose, two sets of siblings, who had an appointment to get fixed that needed transportation. The route to San Jose on a weekday morning during rush hour was definitely stressful because I wanted to make sure the kittens got to their surgery on time. It took me an hour or so to get to the foster’s house, which was around 30 minutes away with the exception of traffic. Once I picked up the kittens, I drove essentially all the way back home since the vet was in Palo Alto. After dropping them off for surgery, I went back home and focused on computer work for a couple of hours. Primarily, I browsed through local Reddit groups and PetFinder on behalf of Pink Paws so that when I create posts for adopting some of the foster cats, their locations would cor

One thing that I feel I learned a lot about this first week of my senior project in Kitten Rescue is the operational aspect of Pink Paws For the Cause. Working with my mentor who started the nonprofit focusing on drawing help and attention to feral and abandoned kittens and cats in the Bay Area, I was expecting to be seeing more of the action side than the corporate component based on the fact that the organization is a charity. In just the first week of my project, I am glad I have been tasked with the actual work but also with seeing the perspective of operations and management through my exposure to a balance of both sides of the business. For example, while I have worked with Charlene a bit this week to feed abandoned kittens and cats in Menlo Park and be a transporter for her foster kittens, I have also seen how important her connections are to her business and how she is successful with her rescue program by working with members of local employees of hers in various locations out

  Monday May 15, 2023 10:30 am PST (tuesday) Yesterday, I drove to Fremont again to help one of the women my mentor works with with a few things. When I got there, I played with these two feral kittens for a couple of hours, in order to socialize them and get them used to people so they will progress and be ready for adoption faster. I then fed them and tried to put a harness on one of them, which didn’t really work out too well so I put that aside for another time. A few hours later, I drove to San Jose to pick up three kittens from the vet who had gotten fixed, but they weren’t ready to be picked up yet. At that point, I was kind of annoyed because the drive from Fremont to San Jose during rush hour took a lot of time, mostly spent sitting in traffic, and I would have to go back almost as soon as I got back to Fremont. So, instead, I drove back to Fremont, which took an hour, and then I was sent to Newark to pick up a cat that needed to be fixed. I took that cat back all the way to F

 Saturday May 13, 2023 3:30 pm PST This morning I went to a local pet shop in Palo Alto to help at an adoption fair for a few kittens. When I got there, I set up for the customers and then I stayed throughout the entire time to answer any questions and assist my mentor with the kittens. In the first set of kittens, there were two boys, and the second was two girls, in addition to a 9-month-old cat. The last set of kittens was another pair of two boys, who were black and white. Because of the length of the fair, I ended up playing with the kittens a lot of the time, which was fun for a while but there wasn’t a lot going on. It was not that busy so it was a lot of waiting and feeding the kittens and talking to the prospective families. At the end, it was pretty dead and not a lot of people were there anymore so we started to take everything down/clean up. I really enjoyed meeting new people and learning how the fair was put together and structured.  Hours: 5 Total hours: 31

 Friday May 12, 2023 10:17 pm PST I started out senior project today in the mid-morning by feeding kittens at two different parks, an apartment complex, and near a local elementary school. Everything went smoothly until I ran out of water, so I had to go to the store and buy water gallons, extending the entire process by a significant amount since I couldn’t find my way to one of the parks for a while. I took a break for a bit, and then at 3:30 I drove to Fremont again to pick up the litter of kittens I’ve been taking care of and take them to their new foster home. The whole trip took so long because of traffic and I also ended up staying way longer than planned, but it was fun overall. I left Fremont and drove the kittens and the mom to San Jose, where a vet tech did a preliminary medical exam to screen for any lasting health complications. I then drove the kittens to a girl's house in Campbell who will be fostering them for the next four weeks. When I got there, I thought I would

 Thursday May 11, 2023 10:44 pm PST There wasn’t a lot going on today for me to do, so the only thing I ended up doing for senior project was transporting a newborn kitten to a foster. Surprisingly, I still got a significant amount of time in for having one errand to run. I drove from Palo Alto to Fremont which was unfortunate timing during rush hour and I was stuck in traffic, which was stressful on a schedule. When I got to Fremont, I saw the litter of kittens I’d been helping take care of and assisted in giving them medicine. Then, a new kitten was dropped off, which had been left on someone’s driveway, and it was one week old and hadn’t even developed the ability to open her eyes yet. I drove that kitten back across the Bay Area which ended up being a disaster due to a two-hour drive that would’ve been 35 minutes without traffic. Despite that, I definitely enjoyed the whole four-hour experience because the kitten was only one week old and so small and had an upper respiratory infec

 Wednesday May 10, 2023 8:50 pm PST         Today was the best day of senior project so far. My mentor, Charlene, connected me with someone she works with through her organization Pink Paws for the Cause, and I spent a large part of my day in Fremont helping take care of a litter of kittens that were rescued yesterday. The kittens had been found in an empty hot tub nearby the other day in a malnourished state. The first thing I did was weigh all of the kittens, I weighed all of the kittens and documented the data to keep track of their health and future growth. At about two weeks old and with their previously irregular eating patterns, the kittens weighed between 0.5 and 0.9 pounds. I then fed the kittens using a syringe and the cat formula mixture provided since most of the kittens were in a fragile state. Feeding all of them took a lot longer than I could have imagined since they didn’t like to be separated from each other. In order to get them to a healthy weight, I also needed to f

 Tuesday May 9, 2023 9 pm PST Today, I met with a volunteer for Pink Paws organization and she took me around to four different locations where we fed multiple abandoned cats and left water for them. All of these stations were in Menlo Park, CA. The first location was a park where we saw two cats, so we left food and water for them, and extra for the additional cats the camera picked up. The second location was in the yard of a house in the neighborhood, and we saw only one cat out, but still left out some food and water. The third location was a park that had three different stations for food and water, so we filled all three, and saw a few cats out there. The fourth was a school near abandoned railroad tracks where the most cats were, so we left lots of food and water. In addition, I reviewed a few Facebook posts for kittens that need to be adopted, which are posted on Petfinder, so I can create a Reddit post tomorrow for some kittens. I also connected with a representative of a diff

6:15 pm PST 5/8/2023 The first day of senior project was not super busy and was more of an online day for me, where I was doing research on different topics I will need to master for the weeks to come. First, I watched a webinar that taught the public how to react, care for, and approach abandoned kittens. I also learned a lot about the behind the scenes management of a nonprofit organization for kittens called Pink Paws for the Cause in a separate webinar. For example, the webinar taught me how to efficiently gain substantial funding from local communities, communicating the needs of public health, research on legal issues/ordinances, recruiting and organizing volunteers, and the strategy of the medical side of caring for abandoned kittens. I also worked with my mentor today on social media promotion, and gained moderator access to the nonprofits Facebook account and gathered intel from there so I am able to post and promote adoption opportunities in the weeks to come. Overall it was