Surrey Cats seeks sustainable funding for free spay-neuter services and emergency kitten care

Surrey Community Cat Foundation, known as Surrey Cats, is struggling to keep pace with demand for free spay-neuter services and emergency care for stray kittens, even as the organization fills a critical gap in the city's animal welfare system.

Founded in 2014 to address Surrey's stray cat overpopulation, Surrey Cats offers free spay-neuter services to low-income guardians, food and supply assistance, emergency care for stray kittens and mother cats, and help fixing feral cats. The work is run almost entirely by volunteers: president Tamsin Ramsay and communication co-ordinator Therese McKirdy have each dedicated more than a decade to the organization while maintaining full-time jobs elsewhere.

The core problem is money. Most funding comes from inconsistent donations. The City of Surrey provides close to $2,000 annually — a sum Ramsay said is too small to run every program. On October 18, Surrey Cats held a bingo night that sold out 100 tickets in six days to raise awareness and funds.

The service bottleneck is stark: typical spay-neuter surgery costs around $300, pricing most low-income cat guardians out of the market. Surrey Cats offers the procedure free but can provide only 24 to 25 services per month. "Demand is high," the organization said. Applications for the free service open on the first of every month; the next round is November 1.

Ramsay said Surrey Cats is like "a bridge" between the streets and foster care, filling gaps the broader animal welfare system leaves untouched. The organization does not facilitate adoption like a typical rescue would. Instead, it stabilizes sick or newborn kittens for one to two weeks, then transfers them to partner foster homes. McKirdy, who has 40 years of experience in animal husbandry from her background as a nurse and pharmacy technician, handles much of the medical stabilization work. Earlier this month, the team took in a litter of seven kittens found in a wet, moldy cardboard box with glue on their fur and nursed them back to health.

"We're not qualified for a lot of grants because we're not a 'rescue,'" McKirdy said. The classification blocks access to funding that larger shelter organizations receive — yet Surrey Cats argues the SPCA, operating with restricted funding, lacks the resources to address stray-cat overpopulation comprehensively. Ramsay noted that only about 30% of kittens survive on the streets after birth.