This monthly adoption event at the Rogue Valley Mall brings together cats, kittens and community

By Midge Raymond

Last Saturday, at the Rogue Valley Mall, a crowd gathered outside the retail space across from Kay Jewelers. Some held cat carriers. Others tried to get a peek inside. 

At 11 a.m., the gates opened — and the crowd poured in for the eighth Feline Fair, a FOTAS-sponsored event that began in October 2023 with a donation of space from the mall and the collaboration of many local rescues who had cats and kittens ready for adoption. 

“At the time, we thought it was going to be a one-time event,” says Eliza Kauder, who is bookkeeping, donation processing and development coordinator for Friends of the Animals (FOTAS), as well as the monthly vaccination and microchip clinic coordinator. 

Last year, when Jackson County Animal Services stopped supporting cats at the shelter, it became clear to then–executive director Sky Loos that something had to be done for cats and kittens. Once FOTAS’s agreement with the county ended that fall, during that spring and summer, the county would only support cats at the shelter if their care was financed by FOTAS.

Kauder knew that other rescue groups relying on foster families held outreach events to get their cats adopted. “I said, ‘Well, we need to do that,’” she says. “It would be great if it was someplace inside, safe, where there’d be ample parking and so forth.” She noticed the Rogue Valley Mall had space available, so she reached out and asked — and found out the mall generously donates space to nonprofits to use for events!

“We decided we wanted to do this collaboratively with other cat rescue nonprofits,” Kauder says. “We didn’t want this to be just a FOTAS event — we wanted this to be a Feline Fair. So after the mall said they’d love to host us for free, I reached out to the other organizations.”

Kauder received positive responses from Feral Cats Advocacy, Melly Cat Rescue, Hero Tails and The Crowned Cat. “We all met over at the space and said, ‘How do we make this work?’” With the other organizations accustomed to hosting outreach events, Kauder learned from them what to bring, how to set up and how to get the word out. FOTAS created a Feline Fair logo that is refreshed for each new event.

“The first time we did it, there were 30 people waiting in line before we opened at 11,” Kauder recalls of the October 2023 Feline Fair. 

The Feline Fair continued in December and February with holiday themes, until kitten season began in the spring. “And then the kittens started coming in faster than we could adopt them out. And we started having more kitties than we could fit into that space.” The original space was “a pretty small space downstairs, near Macy’s.” The Feline Fair is how held in a much larger space across from Kay Jewelers. 

“We’re now doing it monthly during kitten season,” Kauder says. “At the last one, we had close to 100 available for adoption. And we adopted out 42, which was very good.”

Last Saturday, nearly 90 cats and kittens were available for adoption from FOTAS as well as Feral Cats Advocacy (FCA) and Melly Cat Rescue.

“The Feline Fair has been great, especially since I operate out of my home. I live in Ruch, far away, and I have fosters all over the Rogue Valley,” says Melody Spiegel of Melly Cat. “It’s easier to have them all in one place for people to come and see them.”

At Saturday’s event, Melly Cat had 20 cats and kittens available for adoption. Within two hours four had already been adopted. “Obviously this isn’t the entirety of our collection,” Spiegel says, “but it’s a great venue for people to come and meet our kitties. We’ve definitely had more adoptions since we started doing these events.” By the end of the day, nine cats would be in their new homes.

Melly Cat volunteer Liz Kenyon appreciates the events as well. “It is nice to have our cats be able to be seen versus them just being in the fosters’ homes And it lets us see how they interact with everybody too — if they’re really reclusive, maybe they wouldn’t be good at an event. It just gives us the knowledge to know the cats a little bit more. I can’t make it to all these fosters’ homes, so it’s great to see the all these cats. That’s what I like.”

For Feral Cats Advocacy board member and treasurer Nadia Mohamed, the community aspect of the event is a plus. “It’s a great help for us to have a community event like this with all the different rescues. It gets more eyes on [the cats]; it draws more people in because there are so many cats here. The time before last, we got 17 of 19 cats adopted. The last time we only had about 10 of 19 adopted. It depends on the day, who’s coming through, but it’s a really great event to draw more people in and have them see what we do.”

And that’s another benefit of the event — finding more supporters. “People will donate at the events because they can’t adopt,” says Mohamed. “We have our Blue Bag program with BottleDrop, so if they can’t do a monetary donation, we offer a box of bags, and they can donate their cans that way. We have a volunteer sign-up sheet. So if people want to do something to help the cat community, it’s a great way for us to meet people that way too.” 

FOTAS has seen these benefits as well. “It’s a wonderful outreach event,” Kauder says. “We’ve had some people who have adopted show an interest in becoming a foster, so that’s nice. We ask for donations at every adoption, and I would say 80 percent of people will donate a little something.”

But adoption is still the focus — and Kauder emphasizes that adopters go through a full adoption process, with an application, counseling, vetting of housing (if, for example, landlord approval is required), and a contract. Small, gated meet-and-greet stations are set up throughout the event space so cats, kittens and humans can safely spend time together before deciding on an adoption. The participating organizations have aligned their adoption guidelines and charge the same fee, $100. FOTAS pays the second adoption fee for the 2-fur-1 program for all the organizations to encourage two adoptions, especially for kittens. 

Adoptions are important not only to find homes for cats and kittens but especially to make room for more. “FCA had between 130 and 145 cats at one point in the spring,” says Mohamed. “Kitten season was very hard on us. These events have helped us get down to about 80 in custody now. That frees up funds for us to be able to help more cats.”

The Feline Fair “keeps our fosters flowing through the cat foster program,” says Terri Frazier, FOTAS cat foster program coordinator. “If we didn’t have the adoption fair once a month then our fosters would just linger, and we would not have the turnover that we need.”

At Saturday’s event, 31 cats found their forever homes — 10 FOTAS cats, 12 FCA cats and nine Melly cats. The Feline Fair will be held monthly through October, per the agreement with Rogue Valley Mall — and perhaps beyond. “Kitten season seems to be year-round these days,” says Kauder, “so it’s possible that we will continue to do it monthly.”  

Save the date: The next Feline Fair will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 14, at the Rogue Valley Mall in Medford.

Ashland resident Midge Raymond is co-founder of Ashland Creek Press and author of the novels “Floreana” and “My Last Continent” and co-author of “Devils Island.” Email suggestions and questions for Catty Corner to her at [email protected]. 

Aug. 19: A mischaracterization about available space at the Rogue Valley Mall was removed, and additional information was added about the mall’s policy regarding nonprofits.