Saving one cat won’t change the world, but for that cat, the world changes forever.
When Christine Hubbard founded Love Your Feral Felines in 2011, her goal was to save a handful of feral cats from being euthanized and give them useful and safe lives through TNR (trap-neuter-return) and barn homes. LYFF’s scope has grown since that day, and to date, we’ve changed the world for more than 10,500 felines—and the number keeps growing.
Many people start volunteering because they want to help a cause or a community. For most, volunteering is something they add to their already busy lives—and thank goodness for them, because they accomplish a lot of what gets done in our society. But then there are the people who turn a volunteer shift into a life’s mission. That’s how Love Your Feral Felines began.
Christine’s desire to help led her to volunteering at a shelter. Her compassion and outrage over the plight of feral cats there led her to starting her own barn cat program and non-profit organization—to building her own force of volunteers committed to giving cats and kittens a second chance at life. As LYFF began to have more and more impact, Christine and her team saw more and more need. Saving feral cats wasn’t enough, not when there were others who also needed second chances.
In 2017, Melissa Dunaj joined LYFF and originated its Kitten Foster Program. While that started as a way to place feral kittens, it quickly expanded to include any kitten that shelters couldn’t care for, whether they were babies needing round-the-clock bottle feeding, kittens in need of care for a few weeks prior to being spayed or neutered and adopted, or challenging medical cases. From just a handful of foster parents in 2017 to more than 100 today, LYFF has grown the program enough that we’ve “graduated” or adopted out more than 4,200 socialized kittens and cats.
Over the years, LYFF has become a group that leaps into action whenever the team sees a need—as Melissa has said, “If there’s a problem we can fix, we go hard.” Veterinary clinics closed during the pandemic? LYFF saved more cats and helped get more cats spayed and neutered. New, unmonitored colonies of feral cats appearing? LYFF volunteers spend days trapping them all, getting them medical care, releasing them back to their location—and then continue to feed and care for them. A hoarding situation or a feral colony that needs a rescue to step in to save dozens of feline lives? LYFF works it out. Missing a way to facilitate public interaction with our adoptable cats? We open our own LYFF Adoption Center in Vista, CA, and welcome the public every weekend for Cat Cuddle Hours.
As LYFF celebrates the anniversary of its founding this week, we continue our daily mission to give cats and kittens a second chance at life. We salute Christine, Melissa, and every single one of our volunteers—past and present—all of whom have played a part in making such an impact on feline lives. If you’d like to join our lifesaving—and adorable—work, we welcome you. And our kitties will thank you.
