SAFe Rescue's 3rd Annual Cat Photo Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is SAFe Rescue's 3rd Annual Cat Photo Contest and who runs it?

Seattle Area Feline Rescue, a cat adoption nonprofit headquartered at 20226 Ballinger Way NE in Shoreline, Washington, stages a June photo fundraiser whose full title is SAFe Rescue's 3rd Annual Cat Photo Contest. The ballot invites supporters to upload portraits of their own cats, then throws the finished gallery open to public voting, with the whole event framed on the page as a "Fundraiser for Seattle Area Feline Rescue."

Across the ballot the organizer alternates between its full name and the shorter SAFe Rescue branding, and both labels sit above the same Shoreline shelter running the June event.

The 2026 ballot sits at gogophotocontest.com/saferescue, an address dedicated to this one rescue's round rather than a shared marketplace of simultaneous contests.

Prizes on the 2026 ballot

Sadie-Pie, introduced by the contest as the artist generously donating her talent, supplies illustrations for the first, second and third place photos. Partway through the round the ballot carried a "NEW PRIZE ADDED!" banner announcing a bonus from the same artist: one 8x8" pet portrait, stacked on top of the three place illustrations.

When does the cat photo contest run and which editions are confirmed?

The rescue pins the event to June. In 2026, submissions and voting opened together at 10:00 AM Pacific Time on Monday, June 1 and stayed open until 9:00 PM Pacific Time on Tuesday, June 30. The ballot now displays a "Contest has ended" notice, so that round is closed.

Confirmed editions of the fundraiser cover 2025 and 2026, and the title's "3rd Annual" label presents it as a repeating June fixture. The rescue's greeting told supporters, "Last year, your photos and votes raised $24,000 for cats at SAFe," tying the 2025 round to a concrete fundraising figure. An announcement for the next June has not appeared.

Fine print is the one soft spot: which entry classes compete, whether a supporter may back one photo repeatedly, and who qualifies to take part are all left off the printed pages; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Season timeline

How does a supporter vote in the SAFe Rescue photo round?

Voting happens on the fundraiser's ballot page during the June window. A supporter loads gogophotocontest.com/saferescue, browses the entered cat photos, and casts a vote for a favorite straight from the gallery. There is no separate app and no off-site poll; entry forms and the vote tally both sit under the rescue's contest address.

The ballot's menu keeps each job distinct: Participate handles uploading a photo, View Entries holds the gallery of competing cats, and dedicated links lead to the contest rules and the prize descriptions. A supporter weighing several visits across the month can settle the rescue's position on repeat voting from that rules link instead of guessing.

The contest clock runs on Pacific Time, so a supporter following from another zone should convert the 9:00 PM June 30 close before planning a final visit. That single closing moment applies to every entry in the gallery at once.

The sequence in practice

In day-to-day terms the sequence is short: open the ballot, pick a photo, confirm the vote. Because submissions and voting run concurrently, the gallery grows throughout June while older entries keep collecting support, and the steps a first-time visitor follows are the same ones a returning supporter uses.

How does this cat photo ballot differ from other Washington public votes?

Washington's public ballots cluster into two shapes. One shape is the community best-of poll: Best of 425 covering Bellevue and the Eastside, Cascade's Best, the Columbian's Best of Clark County, and the Everett Herald's Best of Snohomish County all ask readers to rank local businesses and services across broad category rosters. The other shape is the pet poll, where the field is animals rather than companies.

Inside that pet group, Big Country News ran a 2025 Cutest Pet Photo Contest, and a separate ballot celebrated Yakima's Kozak the Wonder Dog as America's Favorite Pet. SAFe Rescue's contest stands apart from both: it funds a specific Shoreline rescue, its entries come from the rescue's own supporters' cats, and its top three finishers receive donated illustrations from a named artist.

Where a best-of ballot hands its winners a title inside a publisher's feature cycle, this round hands winning photographers commissioned artwork of their own cats, and the fundraising story belongs to a single shelter rather than a media sponsor.

For readers following several Washington ballots at once, that makes the rescue's round the outlier: a narrow field of cats, a cause-driven story, and a June-only schedule, while the best-of polls run their own cycles on their own calendars.

How can a supporter help a favorite cat photo climb the standings?

The strongest lever is reach. Sharing the ballot address with fellow cat lovers, posting it in local pet groups around Shoreline and Seattle, and asking friends to vote in the first days of June all extend an entry's exposure while the window is wide open.

Framing helps as much as frequency. Friends respond to a cause as readily as to a cute face, so pairing a photo with a line about what the Seattle Area Feline Rescue shelter does gives the ask more weight than a bare link, and mentioning Sadie-Pie's donated portrait gives newcomers a concrete reason to look closely at an entry before casting their vote.

The rescue publishes no guidance about outside vote services on its ballot. Anyone weighing that route can read how supporters grow vote counts on public polls and judge the fit for a charity fundraiser before spending anything.