ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont County Cat Stray Shun is gearing up for the spring and summer season and planning for the expenses that lie ahead.

On May 6, group founder Candace Fleagane will be teaming up with Undo’s West in St. Clairsville to raise money for her organization, which supports cats at the Belmont County Animal Shelter and helps to provide low-cost spay and neutering services to families who can’t afford them.

During the Dine to Donate event, Undo’s will be giving Cat Stray Shun 15% of proceeds from meals that are served, both dine in or takeout.

Although the fundraiser lasts all day, Fleagane said she will be there from 3-8 p.m. selling raffle tickets for chances to win a variety of gifts and goodies.

“We’ve got a Coco Chanel purse and a wreath for spring, gift baskets and things that ladies would like to have for Mother’s Day,” she said.

The organization doesn’t just work with stray cats. It also helps low-income families who are cat owners. The organization will pay to spay and neuter cats owned by low-income families, because its goal is to reduce the stray cat population in Belmont County.

“We offer to help or pay for anybody, anybody that’s low income or anybody that is trying to trap a colony of feral cats. We will pay to have them spayed or neutered. But that’s where the money we raised for all of our fundraisers goes. It all goes for veterinary bills for one thing or the other, you know, either to help the dogs that need help or to spay and neuter cats. We neuter about 100 cats a month,” Fleagane said.

She added that she’s noticed an upswing in the number of abandoned animals in not only Belmont County but the entire state of Ohio.

“People are just dumping dogs and cats, kittens and puppies everywhere, and I think that the state of Ohio needs to make spay and neuter laws. That would solve the whole problem. It would cut down on animal abuse, and it would also cut down on the expenses for every shelter in the state of Ohio,” Fleagane said.

“One of the big reasons why they aren’t spayed and neutered is because it costs too much. So we try to provide it for a low cost to them and even help them pay if they can’t afford that,” she said of cat owners.

To contact Belmont County Cat Stray Shun for information on how it can help provide services for your cat, Fleagane said to either contact the organization or her personal account on Facebook. You can also call the Belmont County Animal Shelter at 740-695-4708.

Meanwhile, the Easter Bunny recently took a break from hopping along the bunny trail to visit with all of the dogs and cats from the shelter at the Ohio Valley Mall. Fleagane and a group of volunteers loaded up the shelter residents and shuttled them to the mall to get their pictures with the Easter Bunny.

“The dogs really loved it. The cats were not so crazy about the Easter Bunny,” Fleagane said.

In addition to the cats and dogs meeting the Easter Bunny, they were available to be adopted — an effort that Fleagane said was a huge success.