Finance & Management Team

This is the team responsible for ensuring our charity is always transparent, accountable, organized and balanced! We are proud of our record for paying our accounts on time and keeping diligent, comprehensive records of everything we do to improve the lives of the cats and dogs of Sea Vista.

The Outreach Team

These are  core members of SFAR Volunteers who meet every Thursday afternoon at the field on Taragona Road where we work with dogs, cats and pet owners from Sea Vista.

Each of these volunteers joined our charity because, firstly, they are true animal-lovers and secondly, because they are driven by a desire to do everything possible to help improve the lives of township animals.  We’ve had many people express an interest in joining our outreach but not many survive two or three weeks before falling by the wayside. The work is challenging. People visit in large numbers with many dogs to request food or medical assistance. Volunteers who enjoy this work are able to remain calm in stressful, sometimes volatile situations and competently handle anxious and sometimes frightened dogs and cats. The secret to being part of a successful team of animal rescuers, is to focus only on the animals in need of help. People will always bring problems and tension to any situation and it’s vital  never to become distracted from taking the best care of their animals.

Feral and Domestic Cat Team

Stella Plantinga

Jodi Kruger’s mission is to end the cycle of feral cat reproduction through trapping and sterilization, before returning healthy ferals to their colonies where feeding stations and watchful, observant Cat Caretakers are in place.

Stella Plantinga regularly visits homes of domestic cat in Sea Vista to educate, inform and enlighten their owners about taking the very best care of felines in an area not known to be cat-friendly.

Both Jodi and Stella rescue and rehabilitate feral and domestic kittens and cats and place them in loving homes.

The Transport Team

This group of dedicated women devote time every Wednesday and Thursday to transport dogs to be sterilized to the SPCA Assisi, Humansdorp.

The task entails waiting patiently for the dog to arrive at the collection point, loading dogs into crates for safe transportation, unloading dogs at the clinic and completing required paper-work. Transporters return dogs home after surgery, provide their owners with pain medicine and request the dog is carefully monitored and kept indoors immediately following sterilization. These women are  vital members of our St Francis Animal Rescue team of volunteers.

The Fund Raising Team

Our fund raisers have a job on their hands to raise R80,000 to fund St Francis Animal Rescue every single month. Thankfully, our charity is supported with annual grants from Kouga Municipality and we’ve been fortunate enough to receive two traunches of Lotto funding. SFAR is privileged to be supported by regular donors including ‘The Stretch Foundation’ and Marcel West – an animal loving benefactor who supports many animal rescues. Our ‘Have a Heart Fund’ has 49 members – our goal is 80, in order to be self-sustaining.

Our biggest event each year is the St Francis Animal Rescue Golf Day, run in conjunction with the St Francis Bay Golf Club. This is managed by Rene Botha, a superb golfer herself, with support from our entire team.  Other successful fund-raisers include our quarterly Cake Sales, the annual sale of our calendars designed by the super-talented Tori Stowe from Bathurst. Challenges presented by Covid prevented us holding most outdoor and indoor functions and we’ve used on-line auctions to keep topping up funds we need to do our work.

The Vet Team

The Humansdorp Veterinary Clinic

The highly respected vets working at this busy practice are primary caregivers for St Francis Animal Rescue. We work mainly with Dr Annelise Barker who takes care of domestic animals though also with the rest of the team of ‘Farm Vets’, when they are on duty at the clinic.

As a charity, St Francis Animal Rescue is charged ‘welfare’ rates for treatment of animals brought to the clinic. These patients are generally dogs suffering from an illness or those who’ve  been hurt in car accidents,  burned or stabbed – or bitten in fights with other dogs. Vets from the Humansdorp Clinic have worked with our volunteers to vaccinate cats and dogs during Rabies’ Campaigns and visited our outreaches. We are beyond grateful for their selfless dedication and on-going assistance for animals from Sea Vista.

Aloe Veterinary Clinic

St Francis Animal Rescue’s ’Cat Ladies’, Jodi Kruger and Stella Plantinga, work with Dr Nerine Botha from Aloe – our local St Francis Bay Veterinary Practice.

All feral kittens and cats from St Francis Bay, and domesticated kittens and cats from Sea Vista, are treated by Dr Botha at her busy practice.

Cats and kittens are routinely tested for fiv/FeLv, before they are sterilized.  These tests are for feline leukemia and feline AIDS and feline immunodeficiency virus. This is essential testing for  kittens and  adults who have exposure to outside cats, or go outdoors. Once they are deemed healthy, feral cats are sterilized and their ears notched for recognition purposes in the wild.  Cats and kittens, particularly those from situations of neglect, are treated for ‘Snuffles’ or the Feline Herpes Virus – one of the most common causes of acute upper respiratory tract infections in cats. The virus is highly contagious and easily transmitted between cats through contact with saliva, eye and nasal secretions.

There is no doubt that the totally committed team of Jodi and Stella, working collectively with Dr Nerine Botha, is doing wonderful work to keep cats in the wild and domesticated cats in Sea Vista, sterilized, vaccinated for Rabies and free from any disease.