The Cat Lounge is currently under development in Mount Ephraim, and when they open in a few weeks, guests will be welcomed into a beautiful lounge space featuring free-roaming adoptable cats—as well as a variety of fun events, all centered around spending time with loving cats and kittens.
While the lounge will likely be the most publicly noticed feature, the full facility will also function as a cat rescue offering a neonatal nursery for kittens with the space equipped with lifesaving tools such as incubators and oxygen concentrators, dedicated areas for TNR (trap-neuter-return) recovery, and the headquarters of the Community Cat Club organization.
I stopped in this week and caught up with Sarah and Robert, who are upgrading the space, which was previously used as offices. It’s a prime location on the Black Horse Pike, directly across from the popular Black Horse Diner.
For The Cat Lounge aspect, it will be open to the public to visit the quiet space, visiting with the cats during reserved timeslots and participating in upcoming events. Some aspects of The Cat Lounge will have small fees associated, but Sara, Robert and the team are focused on getting the lounge open, and will have more details ahead of the opening.
This innovative new Cat Lounge is part of the Community Cat Club organization, whose mission is to address the overpopulation of community cats through targeted TNR efforts, public education, and hands-on assistance.
Founder Sarah Sharpe has worked in animal welfare for eight years. She created the Community Cat Club in 2020, operating first out of a tiny garage—which they quickly outgrew. In recent years, Sarah and her team have been raising funds for a larger, permanent home, with Mount Ephraim identified early on as the ideal location.
Through extensive fundraising efforts, they were able to secure enough support to acquire the Black Horse Pike property—a brick home with an attached office space that will now serve as The Cat Lounge.
Free-roaming cat adoption lounges offer a comfortable and enriching environment for Community Cat Club fosters. It’s particularly invaluable and purposeful for our rescues that have been in foster care for an extended time without adoption interest. All cats and kittens will be thoroughly vetted, both medically and behaviorally to ensure they will thrive in these environments, and our volunteer experts will provide round-the-clock care to keep our feline visitors healthy and happy. All human visitors will require a paid reservation made in advance.. More information will be provided soon
Today, Sarah’s nonprofit has grown into a core team of 10 people, supported by numerous volunteers and financial contributors—truly becoming a community of caring people within the larger community, all focused on protecting and saving cats.
In a June blog post on the Community Cat Club website, Sarah shared the full history of the organization and the long journey toward acquiring their new home which included the five-year challenge of raising the needed funds, noting that no state or local government financing is available to them. Every dollar supporting the organization and its new headquarters came from individual cat-loving donors!
Consider that the nursery alone includes three incubators, an oxygen concentrator, nebulizers, and two Clearly Loved playpens… it really gives an idea of the successful fundraising efforts that have taken place and ongoing funding needed continue the Community Cat Club and Cat Lounge.
You can learn more about the Community Cat Club and The Cat Lounge on their website and social media platforms. They are also actively seeking support in a variety of ways:
How You Can Help
During my visit, I did not take photos inside the main lounge space, as they were preparing for new flooring to be installed and weren’t expecting visitors at that moment. But I’ll be back for their opening to share more details with 42Freeway followers—and to give a full look at what the Cat Lounge experience is all about.
Links and Location
The Cat Lounge – Coming Soon115 N Black Horse PikeMount Ephraim, NJ
The Community Cat Club & Cat Lounge