Have A Nice Spay // Mahalo to everyone who made this clinic a success

Have A Nice Spay BIG MAHALO POST from Darlene, Good Cat Network Executive Director // 📸 by Amber Caires of Amber Vision Photo: www.ambervisionphoto.com

Just wanted to have a separate post with all of these gorgeous photos and detailed thank yous from me personally, so here it goes 💕

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Amber Caires for donating her time and taking beautiful, professional photos of our very first Have A Nice Spay clinic. Amber grew up on Maui and loves animals just as much as we all do. We’re so happy that we have these candid yet gorgeous photos to use on our website, on social, and to look back on and reminisce! We will treasure them forever!

🤙HUGE MAHALO to our program partners Kitty Charm Farm and The Rusty MauiCat Collective. Sarah Haynes from Kitty Charm Farm totally hooked us up with Dr. Jouravska…and it’s all because YOU helped HER with a cat situation. And for coordinating all of the majority of the talented trappers who brought in HUGE groups of cats. Same goes with Lauren, Susan and Cheryl at partner The Rusty MauiCat Collective who trapped a lot of cats themselves and signed on to help for the year. And Sarah totally did a garbage bag run AND vegan lunch run mid-day.

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Dr. Celina Hatt, who owns Animal House Vet Center on Oahu but flew in from California and using her amazing (super fast hands) and special skills with quick flank spays, and taking the time to teach the curious vet staff and volunteers about it all. You really made our first clinic a success. Can’t wait to have you back in June!

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Dr. Zoya Jouravska, who saved the day and signed on to be our Good Cat Network veterinarian – ordering all the prescription medicines and going to be getting HVHQSN training this summer. Plus she stayed to mop up the place after clinic!

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Shelley Dunbar who helped us resurrect the project last year. She did a lot of the initial research and went with Amber Naramore (co-founder) scoped out @petfix on the Big Island to check out their operations and report back. She also stepped in to handle veterinarian accommodations, storage of anesthesia machines, and even brought champagne (in a litter container – perfect, right?) to help us celebrate a successful first clinic.

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Gary Thompson + Sara Patton – Woah. These two have been such a huge support of Good Cat Network since the very beginning: through generous donations, fostering, building projects, volunteering, making connections happen and just being an ear for listening when non-profit operations get a little tough. The kindness that these two have shown to the entire cat rescue community is goes beyond the word “support” – and I can’t find an adjective to really describe it. They are just “extra” in every way. They go out of the way time and time again to help. We cannot express our gratitude enough to them for their support of Good Cat Network projects, but especially for Have A Nice Spay. They pledged $10,000 in support when we were applying for our large grant – which was integral in the foundation’s decision to award the grant because it showed that we had community support. We know that spay and neuter is something that is near and dear to their hearts and we’re so happy we were able to create a program they are extra excited about supporting. Plus, Gary did a full 12 hour volunteer session on our first Have A Nice Spay – and we knew he was exhausted! But he kept on telling us really wanted to see it through til the end of the clinic. This guy is really saint. Don’t know where Good Cat Network would be without these two.

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Rachel Zawacki who has really been my “right-hand-woman” when it came to making Have A Nice Spay happen. She’s been there from the time we were applying for the grant – on the phone with me verbally reading her budget numbers while I sat in a parking lot for cell service because of a power outage, trying to do calculations on our phones and refining numbers the day before grant submission deadline . She has created about five hundred million spreadsheets tracking everything from supplies, volunteer lists and budgets. For a while we were both sort of losing our minds with trying to connect the dots between supplier requirements and troubleshooting the unexpected setbacks and equipment not working…or equipment not showing up, the different sales people and questions that seemed to come our way every minute of the day. Rachel and I had bins and boxes of deliveries at our houses and then we had hours of doing inventory at the storage area covered in mosquito bites. BUT, we made it happen. We proved ourselves with the first one so all we need to do is “copy and paste” and evolve and improve. We did it!

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Cathy at JR Peterson Foundation for taking the time with me on a zoom call back in August 2023 and encouraging us to learn more about spay and neuter clinics and planting the seed for this entire project. She truly made me believe that small non-profit like ours could do a project like this. Fast forward to 2024, and giving us ample zooms and phone-calls, guiding us on the requirements of the grant and process of the application…and for programming the software to track it all, and the endless zoom calls and training sessions on that. None of this would have been possible without this grant and support software. Thank you, JR Peterson, for this $100,000 grant award, for believing in us, and giving us the essential technical tools to make this spay and neuter magic happen!

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Neighborhood Cats, who pledged $10,000 in support when we were applying for our large grant – which was integral in the foundation’s decision to trust us. They also donated both traditional and drop traps to help facilitate our growing Good Cat Network trapping teams. Now we can go trap even more cats and get more trappers trained up!

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Karen Hannie of Aloha Veterinary Care who worked with us in the beginning (somewhat panicked) stage when we thought we weren’t going to have our veterinary supply accounts opened in time to make orders happen in time for delivery. Thankfully, we figured it out, but it sure was a lot of communication! In addition to donating surgical tools, she has also connected us with a DEA veterinarian that will be at our May 10th clinic, which was an absolute lifesaver (our May 10th clinic would not be happening with out Karen’s connections!)

🤙HUGE MAHALO board members Jubilee and Amber and Deb who have all played different “behind the scenes” roles this project – both in emotional and practical support. Jubilee spent a lot of her time in zoom meetings, constructed table risers so that the folding tables could be used as surgical tables, and allows us to store Good Cat supplies in her personal storage area. And let’s not forget that she RAN ALL THE WAY BACK TO KULA to retrieve the microchips the morning of the clinic. Phew! Amber, a TNR fanatic when she lived on Maui, used her vacation to visit family last December to learn all about how PetFix runs their program on the Big Island. Deb, who lives in Chicago, has been a huge emotional support to me since the beginning. I don’t know what I would do without her calendar and email reminders about what reports are due, and when. Nothing would get done in a timely manner without her keeping me in line!

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Lisa Andrade Mason who has been an unbelievable volunteer over the years jumping in to do fostering, cleaning, trapping, transport, supply setup and rescue – and for Have A Nice Spay, she has been integral in figuring out just HOW IN THE HECK we are going to transport these anesthesia machines. She has also been our liaison with the venue, facilitating relationships with those in the community that need trapping help (and then showing up to do the trapping,) played a huge role in setting up the clinic, volunteering during the clinic, breaking down the clinic and calling her husband to bring his van with an emergency to pick up the anesthesia machines (again!) She even wanted to be near the kitties that were struggling to come out of anesthesia or some sort of medical issue to help them spiritually cross over if they needed it (thankfully, all the kitties made it through, but some were touch and go.) That attention to the energetic/spiritual needs is really appreciated and to me, helps round out the compassionate vibe of our clinic.

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Dawn who has worn SO many hats on the project, from helping to clean out our storage space to make room for clinic supplies, to being a consultant on the grant writing process, to attending endless zoom meetings, learning the software, to being a trapper AND volunteer on our first Have A Nice Spay – troubleshooting our paperwork issue (that was a doozie!) and helping us ongoing with coming up with new roles for the project to make things even more efficient.

🤙HUGE MAHALO to PetFix who runs an amazing spay and neuter operation over on the Big Island and has been an open book to how they run things. Time and time again they’ve answered emails and calls and hosted Shelley and Amber back in December, showing us the ropes.

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Heritage Hall, and especially Audrey who has been really encouraging and kind throughout this entire process. Heritage Hall is a Portuguese and Puerto Rican heritage non-profit, and they offer discounted rental for other non-profits like ours. She is an animal lover herself, and didn’t laugh in my face when I asked if this gorgeous hall, used for parties and weddings, could be used for cat surgery! Have A Nice Spay wouldn’t be possible without a venue of this size and quality available at this rate.

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Terry Joaquin who has been quietly working behind the scenes to get all of these kitties registered correctly – besides spay and neuter, vaccination, ear tip – all cats get a microchip. We are taking it upon ourselves to ensure registration to the proper party so that if a kitty gets lost, we’ll know exactly who they belong to. She has been heading this project and also volunteered during intake (and dealt with all the chaos of our first run) and even came to my house to pickup the paperwork so she can manually input all the information.

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Maui Humane Society who donated an anesthesia machine for Have A Nice Spay, saving us thousands of dollars on a new one. We also chatted about some collaborations in the future, so hopefully we can make that happen!

🤙HUGE MAHALO to Stacey Ammerman for giving us a deal on her autoclave machine and donating a nice cart to go with it – those machines are hard to come by!

🤙HUGE MAHALO to the medical team and volunteers – wow! This was MY first time at a spay and neuter clinic (I know) and I learned SO MUCH. Blown away by the energy, the attitude, and the compassion that each and every participant had. Really makes me have hope for humanity. And special thanks to those that showed up and helped with no experience! You were driven by compassion and a willingness to help and learn.

🤙HUGE MAHALO to the unbelievably skilled trappers – the unsung heroes of the project. They’re usually up all night into the early morning hours and then after the kitties are done with surgery, provide the aftercare. They see a lot of tragic situations. They experience firsthand tragic situations. It takes a mental toll. They are sometimes are yelled at and ridiculed. They all have big hearts, though. All they are trying to do is help control this ever growing population of cats. Next time you meet a trapper, ask if you can give them a hug.

🤙HUGE MAHALO to my husband Kent for putting up with me cancelling social activities, dates, dinners so I could try and keep up with both our business and this project. Also, he has run countless errands for me, like going to get a storage shed from Marketplace, picking up our Have A Nice Spay shirts from our vendor, and bringing me OUR PERSONAL HOME PRINTER as an emergency when not one but two weren’t working right. Oh, and he left a sweet card in the car for me so that when I left to set up at 5AM, I had the sweetest words of encouragement and support. I love you Kent.

L to R: Sheena, Dr. Zoya Jouravska and Dr. Celina Hatt

April 5, 2025 at Heritage Hall in Pāʻia

Clinic Manager Rachel Zawacki and Executive Director Darlene Rayhill

Eliane and Sally

Syd talks to Shelley, Volunteer

Rachel, Clinic Manager and Darlene Rayhill, Executive Director

All the action of Have A Nice Spay

NO COST Spay and Neuter!

Donor and Volunteer "Runner" Gary Thompson with Darlene

Lindsey cradling a sedated cat

L: Sheena, R: Dr. Zoya

L to R: Laurel and Lisa, Volunteers