The Cat’s Meow
Jan Price creates alliance to help care for her feline friends in need.
When Jan Price was about 3 years old, she was walking down the sidewalk near her home on the Arkansas side of Texarkana. She noticed a cat and quickly scooped it up in her arms.
“I thought it needed a home,” she recalled.
The cat resisted, but the 3-yearold persistently held onto it and took it home, the cat fighting her all the way.
“The cat tore up my leg,” Price said. But that was not the worst of the story. The cat had rabies, and Price had to take rabies shots.
Even that traumatic event did not deter Price from her love for cats and for all animals. “I think God put a love for animals inside me,” she said. “We had cats, dogs and other animals at home all my life.” As an adult, Price worked with the Humane Society for many years. Her home became the foster home for cats until they could be adopted.
Price moved away from Texarkana after attending Texarkana College. She returned to her hometown years later and now lives in the house she grew up in. She has never lost her love for animals.
Her compassion for stray cats became more intense in 2013, when a neighbor took several of her cats away and turned them loose in the country. Price and several friends searched in three counties for her cats. They found only one. But in the process of looking, Price’s eyes were opened to the number of stray and starving cats wandering around. “We realized there are many homeless cats, and all homeless cats need an advocate,” she said. So Price organized Stray Cat Alliance. She said, “We registered with the proper authorities and are a 501C3 nonprofit, tax deductible organization. We have a good volunteer staff.”
Stray Cat Alliance has continued to grow since 2013. The SCA meets the first Thursday of every month from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church annex building. Price said a full meal is offered for $8. The meal is one of the fundraising efforts for the Alliance. Anyone is welcome to attend the monthly meetings.
Price and her volunteers offer their homes as foster homes for stray cats until they can be adopted. They once had a building for the cats, but that became too costly. Another function of SCA is to trap feral cats who live in colonies, spay and neuter them and give them the necessary vaccination, and then return them to their colony. She said, “Eight volunteers and a floater volunteer feed a colony of cats at Wright Patman Lake every day of the week.”
Price’s husband, Richard, also loves cats. At present, cats of all sizes have found a foster home with the Prices.
“We have two surrogate mother cats who will nurse any kitten we give them,” Price said.
She said she is in constant need of maintenance items such as cat
“I think God put a love for animals inside me”
food, litter and medications. “I post a wish list on our Facebook page, and people bring items to the house and put them on wicker rockers on my front porch.” Price lives at 1920 Grand.
She said Stray Cat Alliance has an application process for people who want to adopt a cat or kitten. It can be found online at scatusa.org or by calling Price at 903-490-0563. SCA also has a facebook page with more than 1,000 followers.
Price owned businesses and worked in real estate for many years. She has also taught computer courses. But she said, smiling, “After retiring from everything, I haven’t worked so hard in all my life as I work right now—and for free.” It is a labor of love, though.
The Alliance is constantly having to raise funds, she said. And more male volunteers are needed. Currently, Price’s husband Richard and the Alliance’s vice president Lawrence Orta are the only men involved. Robyn Fletcher is filling in as vice president while Orta recovers from an illness.
Making use of Price’s computer expertise, Alliance members correspond by computer and also keep in touch through conference calls, in addition to the monthly meetings.
“Our concern is for the homeless and starving cats on the streets,” she said of the organization’s focus.