Dear Tree House Members,

As many of you know, this past spring brought with it many challenges for Tree House Animal Foundation. On a Sunday evening in March, a fire ravaged the multi-unit apartment building next door to Tree House. Fortunately, the building was being renovated and was empty at the time.

The blaze was handled efficiently by the Chicago Fire Department, and it seemed that a potentially tragic outcome to the situation was averted. However, the next day, the fire marshal reported that the neighboring structure had been deemed structurally unsound, and the shelter was forced to immediately evacuate its nearly 300 cats until the demolition of the building was complete.

Although there was little time to respond, a tremendous outpouring of support resulted in every Tree House cat finding a temporary home within hours of the call to evacuate. Joan Levergood, long-time volunteer and friend to Tree House, immediately opened her house and her heart to nearly 100 residents. In little over an hour, the

Anti-Cruelty Society had dispatched three of their mobile units to help transport and house over 100 cats at their facility. Anti-Cruelty made space for these cats in specially designated areas of their facility, allowing Tree House staff unlimited access to provide ongoing care, cleaning, feeding, and socializing.

Animal Ark Veterinary Clinic, North Center Animal Hospital, and Forest Glen Animal Hospital volunteered their facilities to house dozens of cats, and the remaining Tree House residents found temporary homes with caring staff and volunteers. It was an incredible response to an emergency situation, and it changed the nature of this tumultuous event from one of urgent desperation to warm and caring community support.

I want to publicly acknowledge and express the board’s deepest gratitude to the staff, volunteers, neighbors, donors, and fellow animal shelters who came to Tree House Animal Foundation’s rescue. Thanks to all of you, the cats are back at Tree House to await loving homes. It is in times like these that one realizes the true power of community.

I also want to thank all of you, our faithful and generous donors, who showed your true commitment to our cause. Your donations were crucial in helping us move back into the shelter. With the trauma of transferring cats to and from the shelter, many of them became more vulnerable to illnesses such as upper respiratory infections, IBD, stomatitis, ringworm and hotspots. We faced a vast increase in veterinary and clinic staff time during the weeks following our return to the shelter.

Additionally, your gifts allowed us to make necessary repairs and improvements to the shelter to protect ourselves from similar dangers. For instance, we are installing wireless heat sensors throughout the shelter, which will not only alert staff and volunteers if a fire is detected, but will also send an alarm to the local fire station. We are installing a wireless intercom system so that staff and volunteers can communicate from one floor to the next in the event of an emergency. We have also been able to hold fire safety seminars and fire extinguisher training for all staff, which will increase our fire safety preparedness.

Your support has also allowed us to save for the future. With a shelter that faces many structural issues of its own, as well as spatial limitations, we are constantly striving to improve and exp and the environment that we can offer for the Tree House residents. Repairs and enhancements are costly, though, and at some point we may find that it is wasteful to make endless repairs to an old building, if it makes more sense to invest in a new facility. These are considerations that we will be discussing during our strategic planning sessions, which began this spring, and upon its completion we hope to have a clear vision of our future as a humane organization.

On behalf of the board of directors and everyone associated with Tree House, I say thank you to everyone who helped move or house cats, cleaned, donated, or just came by to make sure everything was okay during this challenging time. We are grateful to you all.

Sincerely,

	Bob Marovich President, Board of Directors Tree House Animal Foundation