Donna Leetz moved into a home in Elgin in 2003 and found herself in neck deep in feral cats! Rather than see this as a problem she took it as an opportunity to keep the local feral cat population in check. She volunteers about 25 hours each week trapping cats to spay or neuter them and then releases them back to their lives. “I’m not a licensed shelter and I’m not a licensed rescue,” Leetz said. “I’m just somebody trying to help.”
Leetz sets humane live traps where she places food inside during a normal feeding time and then waits for the animals to walk in.
She has helped out in situations where people have more than 50 cats in a single residence and regularly works at a smaller scale.
She continues to feed about a dozen of the wild cats on her property and fosters another 12 to 15 of the felines for Cinderella’s Hope, a nonprofit organization in West Dundee that helps with cat adoptions and spaying and neutering of both friendly and feral cats.
Leetz said she doesn’t know how long she’ll keep it up — probably until she goes broke, she said dryly.
“I don’t have a goal, but as long as I can help the animals I will continue to help the animals,” Leetz said.
Thank you Donna, from silly kitties everywhere!
