Imagine enjoying a beautiful bike ride in glorious Spring weather and coming across a foreclosed home in which you learn that nearly 60 cats were abandoned without food or water?
If you’re Gail Silver with Silver Bells Rescue in Ohio, you mobilize immediately and do what needs to be done to keep those cats from being picked up by animal control and immediately euthanized. That included getting other rescue groups involved.
Lynne Heldman with Save Our Strays (SOS) immediately assisted by placing the easiest cats to catch, as well as trapping the cats that had the most urgent medical issues. Janet Corbett with Wildwood Pet Network interviewed potential fosters and adopters. Anita Barron with Pet Alliance worked to find fosters, resources and funding for this very large and expensive initiative.
In cooperation with the Cincinnati SPCA, several veterinary hospitals offered discounted services; Fannie Mae, the lender that owned the house also assisted; neighbors who live on the block where the cats were found came to their aid; fosters and other volunteers who heard the story showed up to help, nearly 60 cats were rescued or accounted for, including six cats and kittens who did not survive. Many of the rescued cats required extensive veterinary services to bring them back to health. Click here to read more about the rescue.
A group of artists from around the country created original art from images of the foreclosure cats and donated their work to raise money to fund the rescue efforts through the Foreclosure Cats Art Project. The work is dazzling, and although the originals have been successfully auctioned, you can purchase a calendar and other products with the images through the Foreclosure Cats Online Store.
The Foreclosure Cats Art Project was so successful that it spawned another rescue effort of a feral colony in an abandoned factory. The Factory Cats Project is raising money for TNR efforts at the abandoned factory, which also includes fostering, socializing and adopting out adoptable cats within that colony.
If you live in Ohio and can provide a home to one of the five remaining foreclosure cats or one of the factory cats, click one of the links below. Don’t live in Ohio? You can help by making a donation on the site or buying from their online store.
