08/31/2026
‼️‼️IMMEDIATE HELP NEEDED ‼️‼️
👉🏼 PLEASE READ 👈🏼
We know this is a long post, but please stick with us because it needs to be said and it is very important.
The Quad Cities Animal Recovery Team has been a 501(c)3 organization for a decade this year! What started as recoveries of lost and stray animals gradually included TNR efforts, helping emergency cases, helping owners with emergency veterinary bills as funds allow, and eventually graduated into a full blown rescue three years ago.
In 10 years, we have helped thousands of animals, with 95% of them being local, and found forever homes for hundreds. We have been able to accomplish this with the amazing support of our followers and donors. Not a single person has taken a dime of pay for anything that we have done. Every dollar has gone to operating costs such as veterinary bills and supplies.
We never expected to go past recoveries, and we definitely never expected to become a rescue. But the need was great and so many animals needed help, so we evolved to help as much as we absolutely could.
We get 5-10 requests for intake DAILY. Other shelters are asking us to take in their overflow. Our algorithms have gone terribly, our donations are very little, and we have had no new fosters. Not many people have been adopting lately, either. And since we only take in the “under dogs”, such as high medical or behavioral need, many of our fosters are longer term.
We are now at a horrible crossroads and are not entirely sure what to do. As of right now, we have three options:
🟡 Find 20 new cat fosters. Our current fosters are completely full. We are bursting at the seams and we have to keep saying no to people in need.
🟡 Get a building. We’ve done a lot of research on this and to get the land and building with the requirements we would need would be around $400,000. That may as well be $1 billion to us as we work with a shoestring bank account as it is. We have no idea how to make this work.
🟡 Close the rescue side completely. Which means even less animals able to be helped in the QC when we’re already seeing so many rescues close their doors.
What we would prefer is a building, but unless we have a private island none of us know about to sell, it isn’t looking good. What we definitely do NOT prefer is closing the rescue side. So many animals need help and the thought of never being able to help them just breaks our hearts completely.
So, we’re reaching out to our community to help us.
How YOU can help:
🔹 Foster! We provide all supplies, you provide the love and care. We work with your abilities. If you don’t want bottle babies, you wont get any. If you only want stranger danger cats, you’ll only get those. You can pick and choose! Even being picky can get one or two extra animals the help they need!
🔹 Cant foster? Donate! Even $5 helps more than you know! Vet bills, supplies, everything! And we know it’s an absolute dream that probably will never happen, but could you imagine if we were able to actually get a building from donations?! The amount of animals we could save?!
🔹Cant donate? Volunteer! We NEED grant writers, fundraising people, social media people, etc. All ways to help us get donations!
🔹 Cant volunteer? Like, comment on, and share our posts! It does not matter how much good we do in the algorithm eyes. The algorithm only cares about interactions. And judging by the views we’re getting currently, less than 1% of our followers are even seeing our posts. LESS THAN 1%! How is any organization supposed to get donations and volunteers when the algorithm says “nope”?!
We will keep posting this every other day until we can accomplish one of the first two, or ultimately realize we cannot keep this up if neither of the first two happen. 😭
Please, PLEASE help us keep helping the animals in need! We are NOT an organization who has a large bank account on hand. We initially decided to only ask for funds when needed to allow donations to go to other organizations in need rather than have a decent account, but that has definitely come back to bite us in the end 💔
I cannot stress how much our hearts are breaking at the thought of having to close the rescue side. We’ve gone back and forth on it for months, but we are truly at the crossroads now. If something doesn’t drastically change in the next few months, unfortunately the rescue side will no longer exist in 2027 💔💔💔
Links:
Paypal Donation Link: http://www.paypal.me/qcanimalrecoveryteam
ShelterLuv Donation Link: https://checkout.shelterluv.com/donate/QCRT
Checks:
QCART
PO Box 187
Coal Valley, IL. 61240
Cat Foster App: https://new.shelterluv.com/matchme/foster/QCRT/Cat
Volunteer App for Admin Side (social media, fundraising, grant writing): https://new.shelterluv.com/form/volunteer/QCRT/186452-admin-volunteer
