This is the update I received on the CatForum regarding the situation with Arlene. It is too long for one post so I have broken it into two. ******************************************************************************************* Dear Sue
I wanted to give you an update and also a big thank you for the donations that came for Arlene. A little background on Arlene. She has been working with us for 3 years doing S/N of feral cats that appear and live in her back yard. She has a deep love for animals esp the ferals. Her area is a prime dumping ground for cats and dogs. Its very sad and nothing was being done till Paws Patrol started doing TNR there. Arlene lives in a small funky Arizona town called Arivaca. Its out in the middle of nowhere near the border of Mexico It’s filled with colorful characters who move there because it is an inexpensive (and isolated) place to live. There are retired people on very limited incomes, Mexican trailer park (where they don’t speak English. We have to put flyers up in Spanish when we are going to do trapping). Old hippies have settle there. There are meth houses there too!!!! Well you get the picture. Last year her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The doctors wanted to do chemo and surgery. So we had to do a big sweep of all the kittens in the backyard. (That is how I ended up with 10 kittens suddenly. That was a story in its self.) Her husband ended up dieing several weeks later. Which left her strapped with medical bills and loss of his retirement income portion & which put her house into foreclosure when her meager savings were used up to pay bills. It’s so very sad. The nice part of all this is when we found out she had been buying her own indoor animals food with her food stamps we knew we had to help her. It was like it took a life of its own. People could finally put a face to all the woes going on in this economy. I called a friend of mine who had adopted a kitten I had fostered from her yard and asked them if they like to donate a bag of cat food to Arlene in their beloved crazy Chili Beans honor. They said absolutely yes! And brought me up $ for her. They told another friend and they donated too. Another friend of mine was talking at lunch to her co-workers and boss about what was happening. The boss gave her a hundred dollar bill and said give this to Arlene cuz Im sure there are things food stamps wont cover and I’m want her to use it on herself Others went out and brought us food and litter and dog food. It was amazing and I’m choking up just typing and recounting it all in my mind to tell you. ********************************************************************************************** End of part 1 _______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list [email protected] http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
