(Credit: Show Me Your Ear Tips TNR Trapping)
A community bingo fundraiser is adding some feline flair to the weekend calendar, offering residents a chance to win prizes while helping save the lives of local cats.
Show Me Your Ear Tips TNR Trapping, a registered nonprofit based in New Britain Township, will host its Sunday Bingo Fundraiser from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Montgomery Township Community Recreation Center, 1030 Stump Road.(GPS: Montgomeryville)
Proceeds will directly benefit the group’s Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) services, which focus on reducing the stray and feral cat population in Bucks and Montgomery counties through humane, non-lethal methods.
Tickets for the fundraiser are $25 in advance or $30 at the door, and include 10 games of bingo, along with a 50/50 drawing and door raffles.
Show Me Your Ear Tips TNR also welcomes three sponsor levels from interested donors to support its mission: $125 sponsors two cats to be spayed/neutered; $200 sponsors four cats to be spayed/neutered; and $500 sponsors eight cats to be spayed/neutered
Run by Donna Gellert, the organization works to spay or neuter, vaccinate, and ear-tip community cats to identify those already treated.
“My mission is to get every feral and community cat spayed or neutered,” Gellert said. “People abandon cats all the time and they haven’t gotten them fixed. Cats are not the problem — people are.”
Gellert said feral cats are often misunderstood and overlooked. Her nonprofit assists in finding people’s stray cat answers on how to manage a colony.
“I've watched the suffering of cats dying and litter after litter. I would love for this to stop. So, I started a nonprofit TNR Trapping organization where I go and trap community and feral cats and get them spayed and neutered,” she said.
Gellert added that the group’s outreach often extends to helping seniors who feed stray cats but may not realize they are contributing to population growth.
“It’s one of their only forms of companionship,” she said. “My secondary mission is to support seniors by helping them get their community cats fixed and providing food.”
Gellert said people abandon cats all the time without getting them fixed, due to costs or other issues.
“When we TNR, we spay or neuter, we vaccinate for rabies and distemper, and then the cats are ear tipped to identify that TNR has already been done,” she said. “Telling people to starve cats doesn't work, telling people to not provide shelter doesn't work – TNR works.”
She said the community cannot simply adopt its way out of the problem.
“So, at least be human about it and feed them and take care of them and get them vaccinated and be legally allowed to provide them shelter,” she said.
Volunteer Lauren Fisher, a longtime advocate for community cat welfare, said TNR programs make a measurable impact.
“TNR is a great way to start. This helps reduce future community cat populations by preventing new litters, and nuisance behaviors like spraying. Even the smallest organization can make a big difference,” she said.
Donations can be made via Venmo @ShowMeYourEarTips, and more information is available at tnrtrapping.org or 215-808-7693.
