Our Mission
To secure low-cost veterinary services for stray, outdoor, and farm cats and their caretakers. To help people live with these cats in their communities and to teach people how to care for these cats for the span of their lives.
REGISTERED NON-PROFIT:
Tip Me Frederick, Inc. is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Your contributions help us provide low to no cost spay/neuter, vaccines and vet care to stray, outdoor and farm cats in the Frederick County MD area. Your contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Why "Tip Me Frederick"?
Tip Me Frederick derives it’s name from the process of ear-tipping an outdoor cat. This means that the top 1/8″ of the cat’s left ear has been surgically removed. This is a national symbol; quickly becoming an international symbol, that alerts people that a cat has been altered and received its vaccinations. These cats have a “colony caretaker” who loves them and manages their ongoing daily needs. Tip Me Frederick was founded to help these caretakers find the resources they need to do just that.
How We Help
We will help individuals learn how to manage a colony of outdoor cats, including how to provide food, water, and shelter. We provide ongoing support for updating vaccines and other medical care your cats may require. We work with other area rescues to help you find adoption services for friendly lost or abandoned cats and kittens. We can also teach you to tame outdoor kittens if you’d like to find adoption services for them.
We can provide help and support in re-homing by working with farms and businesses, showing them the advantages of keeping outdoor colony cats. Remember, re-homing is always the last option for cats or colonies; finding the proper placement may take a long time. Re-homing is also arduous and requires weeks of confinement to prepare the cats for their new environment. It is always best if the cats can stay where they are, as that is their home. We will provide help and support in speaking with neighbors, management and others to encourage them to allow cats to stay where they are, with a dedicated caretaker.
Our team
Babs Wratten
President
Babs grew up with all kinds of animals, but has a real soft spot for community and farm cats. She lives with her husband, Mark, and four cats. She traps, drives clinics, educates people on outdoor cat care and fosters on occasion.
Angela Brittain
Public Relations
Angela has been involved in TNR since the early 90s in Washington DC and Northern Virginia. She lives with her husband and has two children, Jimmy (more of a dog person) and Jayden (certified cat person!) and her three cats and dog, Dixie. She spends her time between TMF and volunteering for her church and several other nonprofit organizations.
Sasha Czeh
Secretary
Sasha has enjoyed volunteering with shelters and rescues from a young age, but loves TNR best because it actually prevents homeless animals and overcrowded shelters. She lives with her husband Tony, son Noah, and their cats.
Amber Frazier
Treasurer
Amber is an animal lover and has a particularly soft spot for kitties. She has a passion for rescuing and serving homeless cats in the community. Amber has her own two sweet rescue kitties and two bunnies. She is excited to share her love and contribute her skills and time to serve cats in need.
Jennifer Sundergill
Foster and Adoption Coordinator
Jennifer has had cats all her life and is passionate about their care and well-being. She currently has five foster fails that she shares her home with and actively fosters for Tiplings. She brings her project management skills from the corporate world to support TMF’s subsidiary, Tiplings to find the best homes for cats pulled from TMF’s TNRM sites. This includes all facets of care, from kitten intake to wellness checks to adoption events and all the data, event, and volunteer elements each requires.
Steven Kleck
IT Coordinator
Steven is a cybersecurity professional by day, solving challenges for some of the biggest companies around the world. By night, he is a proud cat dad of six (Loki, Paul, McLovin, Pavarotti, Ralph, and Sam) and works to ensure Tip Me Frederick’s back-end and administrative functions go smoothly.
Brenda Tibbs
Volunteer Coordinator
Brenda has loved working with feral cats all her life. Her kids grew up thinking all cats were born needing to be tamed! She cares for cats at her home as well as several feral colonies. Brenda lives with her four adopted dogs as well as her cats. She has worked with all kinds of rescued animals, including flying a rescued sea turtle to its new home for Turtles Fly Too.
Dr. Linda Rawls, DVM, Ret.
Veterinary Liaison
Linda grew up in Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama and decided at the age of four that she wanted to be a veterinarian like her favorite uncle, Tommy. Linda was the only female in the Auburn University School of Veterinary Medicine, where she graduated in 1972. Her long career included positions in Mississippi and in Birmingham, AL, as a zoo veterinarian. She settled in Maryland, where she and her former husband, also a veterinarian, purchased a liquor store in New Market and transformed it into New Market Animal Hospital. She raised two daughters and sold the clinic in 2012. Dr. Linda was instrumental in Frederick in the early days of TNR, even coming in on her days off to do surgeries. The TNR community in Frederick owes Dr. Rawls a debt of gratitude, and we are delighted to have her serve on our board as our veterinary liaison. She is also extremely creative and supports us with the various crafts she donates.