Pay It Forward

Do you volunteer?

Is there a cause you feel passionate about?

I am a cat person. There have been times where I cared for a lot of cats at once (let’s just say for about a decade I had over 20 at one time and leave it at that). I have always had an indoor scaredy cat – basically an indoor feral cat who hides and rarely comes out and barely tolerates me (and that is only because I can open the catfood tupperware container!) for as long as I have lived on my own. I know this kind of cat needs a safe environment and would not make it outside of my house. My current scaredy cat is an 18 pound black and yellow tortie who waddles away as fast as she can whenever she spots a human and she hides under the sofa all day.

Once a month my wonderful husband uses a day of his hard earned vacation to stay home and watch the kiddos so I can volunteer. I help out a group who does free spay neuter clinics for feral cats. Every two weeks they fix about 20 – 25 cats.

Feral cats might not be cuddly, they might hate you, but, you know what, that’s fine. We still trap them and fix them and tip their ears so everyone knows they have been fixed. While they are knocked out they get shots and medical attention. I work in recovery. So I keep an eye on them and monitor their waking up, give them fluids (yep, I poke them with a needle) and (what I think is a cool perk!) get to pet a wild animal as it sleeps.

We have saved cat lives.

Follow your passion. Volunteer even in a small way. And it will renew your spirit and make you happy.