To the rescue

The Cat Welfare Association, founded in 1945, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing for the welfare of stray cats and kittens.

The group doesn't take in cats from owners, unless the cats were adopted from the shelter.

Other cat-rescue groups in the Columbus area include Colony Cats in Dublin, which primarily supports feral cats; the CHA Animal Shelter in Columbus, which currently has 25 cats available for adoption; and the Capital Area Humane Society, which has 53 adoptable cats, including 12 that can be met at the Eat Purr Love Cat Cafe in Clintonville.

All of these organizations welcome volunteers. and expressively.

His two younger sisters made themselves at home. Six-year-old Greta, who also reads to the cats once a week, dangled a plastic spider in front of Fred. Three-year-old Amanda systematically made her way around the room with an open bag of treats, dispensing them to all takers. (Fred got more than his share.)

Their mother, Libby Hunt, said that for the girls, “Four legs and a tail are all it takes.”

Jake likes cats and reading, but he latched on to a greater incentive: “When he heard about the pizza party, that did it,” his mother said.

Monthly pizza parties for readers are one way that the club plans to bring community to readers who wouldn’t otherwise meet one another. Another outlet is the bulletin board on which readers are encouraged to post pictures they’ve drawn of the cats or notes about the club.

“When I was reading to the cats, some of them looked at me like they were listening,” one card reads. (The note’s scrupulous author, who had originally written “all of the cats,” had crossed out “all” and crayoned in “some.”)

The club represents just a small part of the activity playing out at the Cat Welfare Association, where 200 to 250 cats are constantly under the shelter’s care.

Last year, 1,400 formerly stray cats were adopted from the shelter.

If the club works as expected, that number will only continue to increase.

“The best outcome,” Bidwell said, “would be consistent adoptions from the shy-cat room along with seeing reclusive cats growing more confident around people.”