When fire destroyed part of a century-old building in Amherst on Saturday, it also destroyed the belongings of many individuals and organizations.
CARMA, short for Cat Rescue Maritimes, is a grass-roots organization of volunteers, that traps, neuters, and releases feral cats. The Amherst chapter suffered severe losses in Saturday’s fire.
Group leader Michelle Hicks says the group lost all of their equipment, including live traps that they use for their spay and neuter program, and cat carriers to transport animals.
“We lost basically all of our equipment, everything that we use to operate,” says Hicks.
The organization stored its equipment in the basement of the warehouse on Station Street, says Hicks.
The group also lost donated items used for online auction fundraisers, which have been, “our only means of fundraising for the last few months because of COVID,” says Hicks.
CARMA Amherst doesn’t really have a physical location other than the storage space it used, says Hicks. “Instead of having shelters we do fostering,” she says. “So we have people to volunteer and they foster all the cats that we bring into care. So that [storage space] housed basically everything we had.”
The lack of physical location has proved challenging in qualifying for financial aid programs in the wake of COVID, says Hicks.
Hicks estimates that the replacement costs for CARMA’s equipment will be in the thousands of dollars, but says she is still working through the inventory of what was lost.
“Every time I put my head down to rest, something else pops in my mind,” she says.
Hicks says she is unsure whether insurance will cover any losses, and has been avoiding bothering the building’s owners, Blake and Vicki Daley.
“They were very good to the community,” says Hicks. “They were very good to us over the years, as well as to other community organizations. The loss that they must be feeling is incredible.”
The fundraising effort to replace the lost equipment has begun, says Hicks. Details are available on the group’s Facebook page.
