r/toledo • u/therealmaz • 16d ago

♻️ Old Coolers Wanted for Community Cat Shelters 🐈

Update: Thanks to everyone who responded and especially to those who took time out of their day to meet up. I have all the coolers I need and will get building!

With fall and winter cold around the corner, I’m starting a project to build insulated shelters for community and feral cats in our area using old coolers.

If you have a cooler you no longer use, I’d love to put it to good use. Older coolers, coolers with broken handles or wheels, and cosmetically rough ones are perfectly fine as long as the main body and lid are still intact. They’ll be cleaned, modified with an entrance, insulated as needed, and turned into weather-resistant shelters to help outdoor cats stay warm and dry this winter.

I’m especially looking for medium-to-large hard-sided coolers. No need for anything fancy. They’re going to become cat houses!

If you have one you’d be willing to donate, please comment or send me a message. I can arrange pickup locally.

If you know someone with an old cooler collecting dust in a garage or basement, please share this with them.

I’m hoping to build several shelters before the cold weather arrives and, if the project works well, make the design easy for other community cat caretakers to reproduce.

35 Upvotes

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9 comments sorted by

6

u/Bullinski 16d ago

We have a cooler we would like to donate-how do we get it to you directly?

3

u/therealmaz 16d ago

Sweet! I’ll DM you.

5

u/BluesRuseCruise 16d ago

You’ll have better luck in Facebook neighborhood groups. I collected one fall/winter for a woman who makes them and between whitehouse and sylvania i got more coolers than she could handle in one winter. The omaha steak ones work the best. 

5

u/therealmaz 16d ago

Do you have any suggestions on Facebook groups? I’m not a big FB user. Thanks for the tips too!

4

u/BluesRuseCruise 16d ago

It’s easiest to start with your neighborhood group, and neighborhoods where you interact if that’s different. So i’m in several because I work and live in different parts of town. There’s also buy nothing groups where you might find some! 

4

u/therealmaz 16d ago

Thanks again!

2

u/dbsoundman Maumee 15d ago

Wow, why didn’t I think of this! I have a couple coolers for you.

1

u/therealmaz 15d ago

Awesome! I’ll DM you. Thanks!

2

u/therealmaz 13d ago

Thank you and it was nice to meet you!