The MEOW Foundation has many rooms where cats have the space to grow, play, and rest. (Reese Nelson, CMRU.ca).
The Make Each One Wanted (MEOW) Foundation is celebrating 25 years of offering services to cats and advising cat owners.
The feline-only no-kill charity is an organization dedicated to promoting cat welfare, offering services to cats, and providing assistance to cat owners in Calgary.
MEOW offers various programs to help Calgary’s feline population including:
- Rescue and Adoption – Provides medical care and shelter to stray/abandoned cats with the ultimate goal of adopting them out to their forever homes.
- Spay Neuter Assistance Program (SNAP) – Aids cat owners experiencing financial crisis by providing access to affordable neuter/spay surgeries.
- Trap Neuter Return (TNR) – Rescues and neuters/spays feral cats in order to reduce overpopulation.
- Cat Food Assistance Program – Assists cat owners experiencing hardship by providing cat or kitten food.
- Accepted donations via mail or e-transfer – Allows MEOW to continue their mission of providing shelter, food, and spay/neuter surgeries for felines.
Director of Operations Debbie Nelson stresses the importance of putting these programs into place to reduce cat overpopulation in Calgary.
“We’ll never be able to adopt ourselves out of overpopulation,” Nelson points out. “[It] can only be solved when you put enough resources into spaying and neutering not only our animals that we rescue, but animals in the community.”
MEOW’s impact and presence in the community
Director of Programs Jenna McFarland says that one of the organization’s main goals is educating Calgary cat owners on proper cat care and steps of precaution to keep their furry friends safe.
“Organizations such as ours really help with spreading that word,” McFarland highlights. “Some days you talk on the phone to people [and] this is the first time they’ve ever heard that cats should be spayed and neutered, and that you probably shouldn’t let your cat outside.”
MEOW operates many facilities throughout the city including the Regal Cat Cafe, Charity Thrift Shops (North and South), and their adoption headquarters. These additional businesses allow them to raise money to better care for the cats.
The organization was first founded in 2000 by 11 members, including Nelson. The founders had some initial concerns about feline overpopulation in Calgary when they found a group of cats in need.
“We had this group of cats that we wanted to get adopted,” Nelson recalls. “We thought, we’ll just work together to get these cats adopted and into good homes.”
The desire to improve cat welfare in Calgary took off from there. MEOW has now become a well-respected organization by veterinarian clinics and companies alike.
Interested in getting involved? The MEOW Foundation offers volunteer and adoption opportunities as well as services for cats/cat owners. Calgarians can help MEOW’s efforts by offering to foster, making a donation, or volunteering at their facilities.
Mutual impact – a personal reflection
If there is one thing this semester has taught me, it is that nothing cures a bad day like kitten cuddles. Getting to work with the MEOW Foundation was such a healing experience for me. I had recently come back from an exchange in Sydney, Australia and was struggling to find something to get excited about. When the MEOW Foundation agreed to be CSL partner, I was overjoyed to be experiencing the same excitement that I was worried I would forget.
The MEOW Foundation is doing amazing work within their organization. The women I got to work with were incredibly encouraging and present for the duration of my time with them. Cuddling with the cats and recording audio/video at MEOW headquarters was not only benefitting me academically, but also served as a reprieve from a very busy schedule. I feel so privileged to have got to work with such a well-respected organization in Calgary and I truly hope that I get to work with them again in the future.
The CSL project was a valuable lesson on communication and collaboration. I did my best in prioritizing the organization’s knowledge of the project by sending interview question lines in advance, organizing meetings to discuss the project outline, and keeping them updated throughout the scripting/editing process.
I also learned that mistakes can happen; the earlier and more articulately you admit to these mistakes, the faster it will be to correct them. I had some issues in gathering audio. By communicating to the MEOW Foundation about my issues, they were able to get me in for additional shooting days and a pretty amazing kitten cuddle session.
My intention with the video was to provide faces to the names of the incredible people behind the organization. I hope that in doing so, Calgarians will feel an even greater personal connection to MEOW and be further inspired to contribute to their amazing cause. MEOW does a wonderful job of creating a social media and web article presence; I thought it beneficial to relay this same presence via video for Calgarians who prefer to consume media in an audio/video format. My biggest hope for this project is that I am able to contribute to MEOW’s mission in a small way.
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