by Athena Dawson

Hofstra  law student Claudia Canmen  started the Campus Cat Initiative, which aims to spay and neuter  the 40 plus stray cats living on campus and give them forever homes. The project began when Claudia found a stray cat that she later named Harvey on campus. She was taken aback by the sheer amount of cats on the campus and decided to take action.

Claudia turned to social media to spread information about the organization’s plans to match the cats with foster homes and expressed their need for donations. That post garnered support, with over 275 cans of cat food donations, traps, and pounds of dry food. Community members have even volunteered to foster some of the cats on campus.

“I think what really sparked it even more… I found out that when Harvey found me, he had already been on campus for a month, his owner passed away from Covid, and his family dumped him on campus,” said Canmen. 

The founder of Tender Loving Cats, TLC, thought of the initiative, and Claudia spearheaded the Campus Cat Initiative, taking on the task of tending to the multiple neglected colonies on Hofstra’s campus. 

With the permission of the university, Canmen was able to officially work on the initiative to spay and neuter all of the cats on Hofstra’s campus. Since then, Claudia began scheduled feedings for the animals and created a plan for a mass trapping. Fellow law student, Aridana Muniz,  as well as TLC volunteer Lisa Landers, have also been working with Claudia to take care of the colony on campus.  

The Campus Cat Initiative’s current mission is to take care of the cats’ health, and find some of the non-feral cats forever homes. Muniz says that she ran into Claudia and they began talking about the colony until she got on board with assisting in the feedings. “ I feel bad because there are so many cats out there. At that point I didn’t know if anybody fed them. I was like yeah I will help you with whatever you need,” said Muniz. 

Claudia has a background in working with felines. In her free time, she works off campus with TLC handling adoption cases and fostering cats that have been brought to the shelter. She started working with TLC during the beginning of the pandemic.

Covid has fueled a rise in animal adoptions as TLC was the only shelter on Long Island to stay open during the pandemic, and they handled 500 adoption applications in this year alone. When  the president of the organization turned to social media to ask for additional volunteers, Caludia decided to try being a foster mom.

“ I know Covid has affected a lot of people negatively, but I have to say if there was any bright side to look at for me, it’s the fact that if Covid had not happened I would not have been involved with TLC and I would not have been taking care of this colony right now.” said Canmen.

Despite being busy law students these young women still find time to focus on this initiative.  

“ It’s hard only because we have really tight schedules and we have so much work at the law school, but I think the one thing we look forward to every day is feeding the cats after class.” said Muniz.

For Lisa Landers, she also began working with TLC during the pandemic, after fostering a cat through the organization. She joined the TLC adoption committee and helps with the TNR ( trapping neutering and releasing), for the Campus Cat Initiative. She also has been taking care of some of the feral cats that have been trapped on campus as they get ready to get placed or get check ups.

” Our philosophy as a recuse is we want to find these cats their forever homes, not just homes for now… adopting them to someone who might give them back is not to anyone’s benefit. So, we are extremely transparent with adopters in all regards possible whether the cat is not well socialized, or the cat has medical problems,” said Landers.

 In terms of long term goals, they want to create a spay and neuter clinic, but  they are still looking for fundraising to launch this program. In mid-September, they were able to trap almost a dozen cats.

 Canmen plans on officially starting the club after she finishes her semester of law school. However, the university does not want students in the club to handle the cats unless they are TLC volunteers.

“ My dream would be to get everybody involved in some way… whether it’s keeping a lookout for them… Getting excited about feeding them and educating other people,” said Canmen.