Find your new
purrrfect friend

The reason I even got her was in its own way a little convoluted. My friend Sarah fell in love with a terrified little barn kitten I rescued (George… yes our girl George, I remain horrible at sexing even to this day). When Sarah went back to LA she became enthralled with kittens on the internet, found Critter Room and TinyKittens, and told me she had just started fostering kittens as Sarah’s Kitten Cuddle Room and I needed to as well. She introduced me to John and to Shelly and helped me get our Facebook page started, while I reached out to a local kitten rescue to see about fostering.

The funny thing is I almost didn’t get Sophia. The gorgeous girl was in a cage under a table at their adoption clinic when my friend Leslie and I went out to talk to them about fostering. I asked about her, they said someone else was coming to foster her. On our way home got a phone call that the foster had never arrived, I’ve never turned a car around as fast as I did that day and went straight back to get her.

With that big kitten rescue in Upstate NY, we fostered over 500 kittens, I got to run their FB page as well having our own foster blog, got to approve applications, support fosters, run adoption clinics, do rescues, and learned a lot of what I wanted to do. Their director brought me in to do so much, taught me so much and I am so grateful her first words to me about fostering was that “kittens are fragile”. Those words have carried me through. Not only fostering throughout the years with them, but helping other rescues and fosters along the way. And there I met some amazing fosters and I got connected to Dr. E. And it is also where I met Stephanie, who is one of the most important connections in rescue I have.

Through all the years Stephanie has worked in rescue, through all the years I fostered, we learned what we liked and what we wanted to do differently. Where we wanted to have a say and how we wanted to do this. Not always able but always trying to hang on to our remit, to our promise, to our hopes, to our goals; we started our own non profit rescue. First establishing ourselves in Connecticut, where I am now, from where we rescue and adopt. Now having also registered as a not-for-profit business in North Carolina, where Stephanie is, so that we can have more control in the care of the precious mama cats and kittens there too; where we have our own fosters and vets, pay for the vetting and health certificates for travel, and arrange for private planes with volunteer pilots to when we need to bring up to Connecticut from there, to give them more opportunities to be adopted. Together we became Sophia L’Orange Kitten Rescue in 2020, a 501(c)3. Stephanie brought in Melody, who has been instrumental in all the rescue and care we’ve been able to provide in NC. Then as need invariably does when kitten season hits the hardest, we needed more fosters and a new era was born.

We had planned to start slowly, where I first had to slowly transitioned us from a Facebook foster page (sharing in my voice, sharing our experiences, following the kittens as they grew to be able to go home with you, sharing the wonderful updates we get), to a rescue’s page. One thing I never wanted to lose was the personal nature of our page, of our work; bringing our followers into it, sharing the day to day, sharing the good, the bad, the ugly, the joys and the heartaches, while trying to also focus provide somewhere for people to learn about the kitties we had available for adoption. Keeping a balance, to never lose the essence of what made us different in the first place

We had wanted to stay small to start, as we all are volunteers with families, animals, and full time jobs ourselves. The universe had other plans. Still some of the pieces we were forced into implementing immediately due to the pandemic have proven to be instrumental in our being able to find the purrfect homes, show off our fosters, and continue to build their purrsonas through social media.

Since we incorporated, our small rescue has grown in the number of foster families we have volunteering with us and has placed over 600 precious creatures into loving homes. We’ve partnered with some amazing rescuers in CT and NC, we’ve built an incredible foundation of friends among other rescues, and have a large body of alumni who always recommend us. It’s been utterly amazing! But throughout all these years we have also had lessons on when we have to say no, when we can’t properly take care of what we have if we don’t. Which truly is one of the hardest, but imperative, parts of rescue and fostering; knowing our limits and our strengths.

We currently have lots of cats and kittens in foster care at all stages of development in our rescue being cared for by some utterly amazing foster families, and are of course looking for more foster families to join us. We rescue not through sheltering, taking them in and pushing them out; but through fostering personalities and health. Through developing relationships and care. With the support of an amazing team of doctors and rescuers! All the way through to taking the time to call references, do searches, check vetting, do home visits, and try to get to know the people who want to bring our precious charges home.

As a kitten rescue too, facing year after year of more and more kittens, we realized we had to do more on the other side to stop the cycle and the suffering of all the kittens and cats who aren’t lucky enough to get into care. There are just not enough fosters or homes. So we now also support community Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Release (TNVR) - through our Stop The Cycle initiative, as we know we will never be able to adopt our way out of the overpopulation and all the kittens who are born in horrible conditions every year.

Every moment is worth it, even from the disinfecting ringworm rooms or the rescues loaded with fleas, through the sub-q fluids, meds, cuddles, purrs, to when we see our adopters faces light up.

As we’ve grown I’ve struggled between the joys that I had sharing my fostering experiences with all of you and the need to keep up with the inquiries into our charges and trying to differentiate between which are ready and which not yet.

It has not been graceful. I have not always been able to respond as quickly as I was used to, when having to merge the two types, coordinate intake, review applications, and help each new foster as we all learn to better care for and highlight these precious creatures. As the number of people visiting our page has increased, so have the comments when people disagree with how we do things, as well as the spam and the trolls. We’ve had people get angry and mean. We’ve tried to stay gentle. And we have been so grateful to see how much our sharing our experiences helps others.

We, of course, have done all this while working our own full time jobs, keeping our families going, and struggling with many realities of life that affect us all. We’ve done all this because we have an amazing support system of friends and followers, coworkers, partners, family, fosters, vets, pilots; a truly incredible village.

I’m rambling of course with our origin story, but I just want to let you in more to what it’s like to do this. Not just the day to day, the responding to pleas or inquires, working on transport, coordinating with our vets, but also the overall of our start.

Our passion and experiences continue to drive us in our attempt to help as many cats as we can. None of which could have been done, none of which could continue without you. Sophia L’Orange Kitten Rescue runs solely off fostering, adoption fees, and monetary donations to provide vet care, food, litter and other foster supplies for our kittens in residence in both CT and NC. For all of this I am so eternally grateful.

— Jenia