Published Aug 15, 2025
Juna nursing her babies, just days after we arrived home from North Carolina. Kellie Gormly / Cats.com
My name is “Mother Catresa,” known as the Patron Saint of Homeless Felines. And I’ve been fostering kittens in my house for the past 18 years.
Alright, go ahead and say it: “Hi, Mother Catresa!” (Kellie, actually, but I love the nickname).
Since I brought home my first litter of two kittens and a mother from a local animal shelter in 2007 – and “foster failed,” having adopted the mother cat named Dharma – I have easily fostered more than 100 kittens and adult cats, namely frightened and vulnerable mother cats who come to my house with the babies they are nursing.
The simple, obvious result is that more than 100 feline lives have been saved, but the impact goes much wider than that as far as what fostering prevents, since fosters will all be spayed and neutered before adoption. Think of it this way: For every kitten or cat that is taken off the streets, or from a home that can’t provide care, you save not only that feline, but you prevent the exponential growth of more homeless kittens, born to a doomed life unless rescued.
That is where you can come in, stop the cycle, and give these babies a chance at a happy life.
I won’t lie and say it’s easy. Kittens require a lot of care and love and interaction and play, lots of litter, and lots of food. And oh, these little creatures can be very messy and rambunctious! But every challenge in fostering – including the heartbreak when the occasional kitten dies – can’t compare to the overwhelming joy and reward in saving these lives.
As I am unable to foster kittens at the moment due to a full house of adult rescues, I have chosen to contribute as a volunteer cuddler at the shelter this summer. Kellie Gormly / Cats.com
In July, we are at the peak of kitten season in many areas, and unwanted kittens that urgently need foster homes are flooding shelters and rescues. If enough foster homes aren’t available, many of these babies face the danger of euthanasia. Do you have just one extra room in your home? If so, then you can foster, and I hope I can convince you to offer your home and heart to a cat rescue or shelter near you.
Here are four awesome reasons to foster:
Free Antidepressants in Fur
Kittens just melt my heart, with their sweet fuzzy faces, adorable antics, their squeaky mews, and the way they fall asleep purring in a pile on my chest. As my sister put it, you just can’t be in a bad mood when you’re around kittens! Being in the presence of kittens gives me a rush of oxytocin, the feel-good cuddle hormone that makes you go “aaawww.” Truly, no matter what kind of bad day I have had, it all dissolves into joy and contentment when I go upstairs to the foster room.
Fun Without Commitment
Wouldn’t we all love to get a new kitten or two or three? But, only some of us are in a position to make a lifelong commitment to adopting kittens and making them full members of our families for 15-plus years. But with fostering, you get your kitten fix for a limited time. Then, when it’s time to put the kittens up for adoption, new ones will be waiting for you. It’s sort of like leasing or renting a kitten.
Directly Saving Lives
Raleigh, the gray tabby, and Cary, the black and white tuxedo, were part of last year’s litter—and we’re delighted to share that these bonded sisters were adopted together. Kellie Gormly / Cats.com
There are many things in this world that break my heart – things like cancer, abuse, and injustice – but aside from donating money to charities that help, I don’t have the expertise to actually stop these things from happening. I’m not a scientist or doctor who will find a cure for any disease.
In a global sense, I alone cannot stop the tragedy of cat overpopulation. I cannot save the world of homeless cats who lose their lives to euthanasia in shelters, or die from hunger or other hazards that come from living on the streets. But, for individual cats and kittens, I can BE the world. For every foster that comes to my house, I am looking at and loving a precious life that would otherwise become a statistic, and I need no special degree or credential to do it. I am saving that baby’s life, and saving potentially hundreds of others by preventing more strays who give birth to more strays.
It’s a vicious cycle, and we have the power to stop it, in our sphere of the world. Together, with enough of us stepping up to foster kittens and cats in need, we can cumulatively stop this tragedy.
You Might Meet Your New Furbaby
This photo is from last year’s litter. After seeing a post about a pregnant cat on death row at a North Carolina kill shelter, I drove down to rescue her. That cat—Juna, the tabby in the tunnel—gave birth to four kittens soon after arriving. One of them is Durham, the gray kitten pictured here. Kellie Gormly / Cats.com
In the rescue world, we call it a “foster failure”: when people fall in love with an animal they are fostering, and end up adopting it. (Well, there are worse things to fail at, right?)
It’s happened to me several times over the years, starting with mommy cat Dharma from my first litter in 2007. Almost every cat I’ve gotten in the past 18 years has been a graduate of Mother Catresa’s Sanctuary; the ones who aren’t foster failures came to me via another rescue route.
The key is knowing when your head needs to put its foot down on your heart. I love every kitten I’ve fostered, but I’d have more than 100 cats if I adopted them all – completely infeasible and then, I couldn’t help any more!
This brings me to the most common comment people make when I tell them that I foster kittens, and encourage them to do the same. “Oh I could never do that!” they say. “I’d get too attached and I couldn’t give them back.”
I know it’s not meant as an insult, but the implication is that I don’t get attached; if I did, the assumption goes, I wouldn’t foster. But that is not at all true. I do get attached, but I know my limits. Over the years, I have cried every time I bring the litter back to the shelter or otherwise put them up for adoption, although it gets easier over time as I get used to the cycle.
Though saying goodbye to animals I have loved for weeks or months hurts, the need for fosters is so great that I know another litter in need or a single cat will need my help, heart and home very soon. When I let go, I make room to help someone else waiting for me.
I urge you to be bold and reach out to a shelter or rescue group and try fostering. Once you experience the joy that comes with this concrete, personal way to save a specific life, you won’t want to quit!
Mother Catresa and the kittens and cats you will rescue thank you.
For more information about fostering kittens and cats, we give a complete guide in this article.
