When Linda Bennett isn’t on the third floor of Central teaching science, she spends her free time rehoming and fostering over 75 cats.
Bennett has worked with the Animal Rescue Foundation since 2010 to give cats a temporary foster home. She currently has 13 cats under her care. Her journey began after adopting a kitten in a parking lot in 1994.
“That was the gateway kitten,” Bennett said.
When she went to PetSmart to get supplies, she saw ARF’s cat adoption center. She helped clean out cages and play with cats until ARF asked her if she could foster cats in her house. Cats are taken from shelters and put in homes like Bennett’s in order to be socialized and eventually adopted.
At the time, she worked from home, so she quickly took on the harder-to-adopt cats.
“In the time my husband and I were fostering, I think we managed to find homes for about 75 cats,” Bennett said.
The shelter pays for the cats’ food and medical care, but Bennett ends up shouldering part of the cost in order to financially support the organization.
According to Bennett, almost all of her house is dedicated to cats.
“We got rid of furniture. It’s cat towers and cat trees and cat shelves,” Bennett said. “When people meet us, they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s my dream to have that many cats.’ It’s not. We’re smart enough to know this is not normal.”
Bennett names the cats after race car drivers or spy novel characters.
“I have a problem in that people treat animals as things, because they’re animals,” Bennett said. “Being able to get them out of rough situations makes me feel good.”
Susan O’Day met Bennett at an adoption event, and O’Day helps her with sick cats. They work with different organizations, but sometimes they go to events together.
“[Bennett] is a passionate animal lover not only for those she calls her own, but also the ones who she is fostering as well as any she hears about who might need help,” Susan O’Day, Bennett’s friend, said.
In the future, Bennett wants to move into short-term emergency and hospice fostering once her current group of cats are gone.