GREENFIELD, Ind. — The Hancock County Humane Society is a "no kill" shelter that takes in cats only.
They'd like to be able to do more, but with limited money, space and volunteers, it's all they can do.
You'll only see cats and kittens in their shelter in Greenfield, and they're all taken care of by generous volunteers.
Kaelyn Roberts is one of the volunteers that helps run the shelter.
"We are funded and run entirely on volunteers and donations," Roberts said. "We are separate from the city and county. Our entire shelter — any cat or kitten that we take in here — we provide medical care that they need."
All of the felines are vaccinated and spayed or neutered before they are placed up for adoption.
Roberts said they've also seen families struggle to take care of their own pets over the past year, so they also provide what they can to those families with a pet food pantry.
"There are many stray cats, and then especially, a lot of people are kind of struggling, you know, financially, taking care of their animals over the past year," Roberts said. "So we also have a pet food pantry that's open on Tuesday evenings and then on Saturdays during the day, so anybody from our community can come and receive free food or litter for cats and dogs and anything like that that they need, so that kind of helps people keep their own animals in their home if we can help out with that."
Right now, the shelter has about 35 volunteers. Monique Lange is one of those volunteers.
She is unable to foster a cat because she lives in an apartment, but she volunteers by cleaning the shelter every Saturday.
"I do live in apartment, and I'm sure anybody who lives in an apartment can empathize, the pet fees are extremely high. So I would rather not pay those, so I come in on Saturdays and this, this is my giving back, this is my time with [them] because I've always been a tech person. I was that kid who would collect cats off the streets, growing up and every week, there'd be a different cat in our house, but I don't have that luxury [in an apartment]," Lange said.
13 to the Rescue: Hancock County Humane Society
Volunteers at the shelter said they realized that if they give the animals names, they get adopted faster. They also liked to have fun with the names. This season, it's all about Hollywood names!
Making sure all of the cats and kittens are superstars is the goal, so they all end up in good, happy families.
For more information about adoptions or how to help, click here.
Upcoming events
The HCHS is hosting an online auction on Thursday, June 3 to raise money for the humane society. They will be selling different themed baskets such as a date night basket, coffee lover basket, sports basket and of course -- a pet basket.
They will have the option to pay via PayPal and have the baskets shipped.
Visit the Hancock County Humane Society Facebook page to join the event.
Then, from 9 a.m. on June 27 to 9 p.m. on July 10, HCHS will be running a "Pets on Parade" photo contest. The categories for the photo contest are patriotic pets, beach buddies and summer sweethearts.
Each photo that you submit to the contest will have an entry fee of $5 and you may enter as many photos as you would like. Votes for the winners are $1 each and you may vote as many times as you would like. Encourage your family and friends to vote, too!
Their goal is to raise $750. All proceeds from this contest will go directly to the care of the homeless animals at the Hancock County Humane Society for things such as food, litter, supplies, medication, and veterinary care.
You do not have to be local or have an adopted pet from their shelter to enter.