c4cats.org

Kim Goings — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 17:52:24 +0000

This is a submission for the DEV's Worldwide Show and Tell Challenge Presented by Mux

What I Built

First, some background....."Community Cats" are cats living on their own in the community with no indoor home or "owner". They often have people who care for them very much and provide food and/or outdoor shelter but they don't "belong" to anyone. They don't receive vet care (including sterilization) and when good intentioned people continue to feed them without having them "fixed", the cats will reproduce at alarming rates. Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is a way to help these (often unsocial) kitties receive vaccinations and sterilization.

Community Cat Colony Connections (c4cats) is an app that I built in an attempt to bring some efficiency to the process. People who need help can request it. People who are active in TNR can register as volunteers. Those volunteers then can request access to the "Dashboard" which allows them to see where cats are needing help, ideally close to where they live, and they can connect with the colony caretakers to start TNR in that area.

As far as I know, this app is the first of its kind. I know many other groups across the US are doing this sort of thing with a VERY manual intensive process, but this is the first attempt at a tech solution. I think we've proven it works well in our area; I'd love it if there were "region" instances all over the country to help local communities.

My Pitch Video

Demo

Demo Walkthrough

I have a demo instance with limited data. Play around if you wish:
Demo Site: https://c4cats.org/?region=DR
Username: demo.user
Password: Password1

The Story Behind It

I wanted an opportunity to learn some new skills beyond 'follow this tutorial that builds this thing of no use'. If my code isn't solving a problem, I get bored.

So I began building this idea I'd had in my head for several years. It grew into an actual thing that people use and like! If you know anything about animal rescue in the US, you know it's greatly underfunded and overwhelming to everyone involved. C4 is my attempt to bring some efficiency to Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) efforts and lessen the burden on those willing to help.

Technical Highlights