c4cats.org
Source: Dev.to
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 well‑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 I built 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 can then request access to the Dashboard, which allows them to see where cats are needing help—ideally close to where they live—and connect with the colony caretakers to start TNR in that area.
As far as I know, this app is the first of its kind. 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
This is a submission for the DEV’s Worldwide Show and Tell Challenge Presented by Mux.
Demo
- Demo Walkthrough: https://player.mux.com/BSLOKLRdsHkA7K2kqhdDLFPar2t8nZ4wHzgiX02eZvFU?metadata-video-title=c4cats&video-title=c4cats
I have a demo instance with limited data. Play around if you wish:
- Demo Site: (URL not provided)
- Username:
demo.user - Password:
Password1
The Story Behind It
I wanted an opportunity to learn 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
- Frontend: A “static” website built with Svelte.
- Backend: Microservices written in Python, hosted on AWS Lambda and accessed via API Gateway.
- Database: A mix of AWS DynamoDB and PostgreSQL hosted by Supabase.