Hi, my name is Katie. At the end of 2017, I moved to Virginia with my husband, Blake, and two cats, Meesha and Theo. I am a Payroll & Benefits Specialist at N.B. Handy Company in downtown Lynchburg.
For as long as I can remember, I have been a crazy cat lady. When I was about 9 years old the cats we had since before I was born passed away. My parents did not want to get another cat so I gave them a PowerPoint presentation on the reasons why we should get a cat. I volunteered at animal shelters and local rescue groups as soon as I was old enough to meet their minimum requirements. Then, my junior year of high school, a few cats showed up at my parents’ warehouse (They owned their own wood flooring business and had a warehouse a few miles down the road from our house). At that point, we had never heard of feral cats so my parents wanted to ignore them in hopes they would go away. I, of course, did not want to ignore them so I started doing research and learned that they were actually feral cats. I learned all about the feral cat population issue and Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). I gave all this info to my parents (it may or may not have been in a PowerPoint ) and they agreed to help me with the TNR. Having that opportunity to learn more about feral cats and care for that colony of about 15 cats is what really expanded my passion for cats.
My senior year of high school, I received two feral kittens from the University of Georgia’s Campus Cat Program. These kittens were about 4 months old and were going to be released back on campus. But I had done lots of research and planned to socialize them and put them up for adoption with a local rescue group. While I did manage to socialize them, they were my first foster fails. Sasha lives with my parents and Meesha is the petite black cat pictured.
Since then, as my husband and I have moved around, I have tried to stay involved where I can but fostering has been limited due to living in apartments. I am thrilled to now own a house where I can foster to my heart’s content and I am glad to have found such a great group to do it with.
