OCEAN PINES, Md. - Local Eagle Scout Christian Martin recently helped produce almost 20 shelters as part of a project to help homeless cats in the area. Here is how the Ocean Pines Association said Martin and Susan Mohler, the president of Town Cats, got together to build shelters for homeless cats.
Martin said he was looking for a new service project and thought of local nonprofit group Town Cats, which formed in 1998 to help address the feral cat problem in nearby Ocean City. “I’ve known Miss Susan, the president of Town Cats, for several years,” he said. “And for two or three years now, I’ve been helping them at their yard sales and at the farmers markets at White Horse Park,” he said. After contacting Town Cats, Martin said the group asked for help building cat shelters.
Martin and Mohler met in the Ocean Pines Community Center to talk about the process, and they planned another session at the community center in mid-December to do the work. “I also made it available so younger people could come and help, if they needed service-learning hours, which is a requirement to graduate high school,” Martin said. “In the end, we had 26 volunteers.”
Martin said the shelters are “like a miniature apartment home” for cats, giving them a haven from the elements. “It helps keep them warm during the winter and cool during the summer,” he said.
Mohler created a PowerPoint on how to build the shelters, which Martin turned into an instruction booklet for the volunteer session. She said to make the shelters, volunteers cut entrance and exit holes into 20-gallon lidded storage bins that are then outfitted with Styrofoam, straw, insulation tape, and a mylar recovery blanket. “There’s an entrance and an emergency exit hole, with a backflap on the emergency exits in case the cat feels trapped,” Martin said. “It’s kind of like a giant, warm igloo.”
Mohler said Town Cats donated all the supplies, but Martin did all the organizing, from booking the room to creating an online signup sheet for volunteers. She said the volunteers made 16 shelters, and about half were claimed within the first week.
“The shelters are placed in designated places where people take care of outside cats,” Mohler said.“People can ask for them if they have cats outside that are not necessarily feral,” she continued. “A feral cat is a cat that does not want to be around people. A stray cat could be a lost cat or just one that runs around but is friendly. And some cats just live outside.”
Mohler said stray and feral cats continue to be an issue in Ocean Pines and surrounding areas. She pointed to numerous social media posts about lost animals. “It just goes on and on,” she said. “But the problem isn’t the cats – it's the people. They don’t get their cats spayed or neutered. So, in about six years two cats could theoretically end up as thousands.”
She said the shelters provided by Martin and his volunteer group “came right on time” because of the colder temperatures.
To request a shelter, visit www.towncats.net or www.facebook.com/towncatsofoceancity and send a message. The nonprofit asks for a $20 donation to help offset the cost of materials.