Today we’d like to introduce you to Mystie Beckwith.
Hi Mystie, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was an only child who spent my days in the woods with books and nature, and many days on my grandparent’s farm just down the road, riding horses, and caring for various farm animals from cows to pigs and chickens. This is where my love of living beings became strong, and the desire to help animals in need started to sprout. Farm life was very hard on my tender heart, and the wellbeing of the animals pulled hard on my heartstrings. As an adult I owned and operated a large pet and farm supply store here in Mount Pleasant, where we adopted out about 300 cats in a traditional cage type setting. At this time, I also became very involved with a local spay/neuter/ TNR organization, Spay Neuter Animal Project, and the true understanding of cat overpopulation issues became extremely apparent. Every time a cat was adopted, we said we were sending out a bit of good Karma into the world. (This is how our organization name was created) We held many adoption events in store, but as shopping habits turned to online purchasing, we decided to close down the feed store and open Karma Kat Cafe. The original dream was simple, to create a safe, communal and cage free space for adoptable cats that were pulled from other shelters, until they could find their forever homes, kind of a middle ground for adoption. Of course, that dream quickly morphed, due to the desperate need for help for so many vulnerable cats in our county. Karma Kat Cafe opened on June 12th, 2018, as a state licensed protection shelter and we have adopted out over 1740 cats during those seven years. We started having our own spay/neuter clinics right in the backroom of our facility, one year after opening, fixing 20 cats per month. After that first year, we were able to move our clinics to a spacious location, and we now fix about 90 cats per month, with over 4000 fixed to date. With this location change we were also able to open up the s/n services to the public, hoping to head off or at least diminish the overwhelming numbers of stray cats in the area, while also providing easily accessible sterilization to those performing TNR. Almost two years ago, we formed the non-profit portion of the rescue-Karma Kat Rescue. Our mission is to make sure that every cat in our care lives a life of love, safety and dignity, while also making a positive impact on cats in our community, through adoption, sterilization, advocating and educating.
Tell us about your organization’s goals for this year.
Our goals for this year include streamlining and improving our shelter protocols, (we just purchased shelter management software) and to keep learning more and doing better for the cats in our care. This year we are also focused on networking and raising funds for our Spay It Forward program, which allows those with economic need to fix their cats at an affordable cost, of just $25. Last year we were able to fix 42 cats through this program.
Tell us about your organization’s proudest moments and/or greatest accomplishments.
Our spay/neuter program is one of our proudest accomplishments, because we all know sterilization is the only way we will ever get ahead of this current cat crisis. These clinics are staffed completely by volunteers, with the exception of our veterinarian, and proof that even a small group of people can make a huge impact. We are also proud to have helped over 100 cats with FIP achieve a cured status over the last 5 years, many NOT from our facility. We pull many medical cases from other shelters because we have strong financial support that enables us to help out with these often expensive cases. And while we all know it is impossible to save every cat, we sure try hard to do our best.
The other fact that we are very proud of is, that not only do we provide a safe space for cats, but we also provide a safe and relaxing space for humans, whether through finding community with our volunteer program or just by having the communal cat lounge, where people can unwind and seek comfort.
What’s on the horizon? What is your organization most looking forward to?
Continuing to advocate and educate for the improvement of the lives of cats in our community through outreach and networking. We would also like to focus on enlarging our pet pantry which provides food to those with economic need in the community.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The biggest challenges are always going to be Cat over population, donations and changing the mindset of humans. We are at a point where we have a great financial support system, which enables us to help so many cats in need and to continue giving back to the community.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I covered a lot of of these details in the first post. But what set us apart from others is our focus on inclusivity and community. It takes a community to solve issues like Cat over population. There is no rescue or shelter that will ever do it alone. By training lay people and giving them the tools to succeed at things like TNR we are working together as a community. Inclusivity has always been an important part of our mission as we work with many organizations such as MMI and Michigan works, so people from all different walks of life are welcome whether is volunteers or visitors.
How do you think about happiness?
What makes me happy is seeing the smile on the faces of adopters when their new furry family member is held in their arms. We work really hard at saving kitty lives so that they can go on and bless their humans with their unconditional love for what we hope is many many years. That is success, two lives impacted in a positive manner.
Pricing:
- visitor fees help support our rescue mission and nonprofit. But we do not charge by the hour. Fees are listed below.
- $10 standard visit
- $8 college student visit
- 3+ people in group:: $8 per person
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.karmakatcafe.com
