NEW BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Just Us For the Animals (JUFTA) is holding a craft and wine festival at the Stumble Inn in New Bethlehem on Saturday, June 30.
There will be acoustic music featuring Steve Duffalo, Chris Hepler, and Brandon Guiffre.
Many local wineries will be participating, and early bird tickets are available. All proceeds will be going to JUFTA.
Stumble Inn is located at 1859 Madison Road, New Bethlehem, Pa.
For more information on this event, visit https://www.facebook.com/justusfortheanimals/.
About Just For the Animals (JUFTA)
Just Us For the Animals (JUFTA) is a 501-c nonprofit organization. They do not have a brick and mortar location; instead, JUFTA operates out of the homes of its volunteers. They seek to be the bridge between homelessness and adoption and to educate the public about pet overpopulation and how to cease it.
JUFTA offers its low-cost services to community members in addition to taking care of animals that are not claimed by an owner.
Last month over 50 cats were spayed and neutered at the Distant Fire Hall thanks to the efforts of JUFTA and Dr. Becky Morrow of Frankie’s Friends. However, this is not a rare event; every month, a mass spay and neuter of either dogs or cats is hosted through JUFTA.
Stray cat overpopulation is an ongoing issue in the New Bethlehem Borough and the surrounding communities. At the height of the issues, the borough received several complaints of feral cats urinating and defecating on people’s porches and destroying property.
“Just Us” works to prevent cat overpopulation through a humane program called Trap, Neuter, Release. Feral cats are trapped, taken to one of the mobile spay and neuter clinics where they receive a safe, high-quality surgery, and released back into the wild. These feral cats are then free to live their lives where they will not contribute to the overpopulation issue. If these cats have any other issues, such as broken teeth or an eye injury, they are promptly vetted while under anesthesia for their spay/neuter. All cats receive a rabies vaccination. Any friendly kittens are put into foster care until they can be adopted.
This issue is not one that will go away overnight. Local cat colonies must be continuously sterilized for these efforts to have long-term effects. Since 2016, JUFTA has seen to the spay/neuter of 2831 cats and 160 dogs. They have also adopted out 201 cats and 23 dogs. Currently, some of the work of JUFTA has been coming to fruition as the complaints to the borough have been drastically minimized.
If you are interested in adopting one of Just Us’s foster cats, you can view them on Petfinder or on their Facebook page.
For more information about Just Us for the Animals, please email [email protected].
Information on JUFTA was contributed by Cecelia Harmon.
