Opening the mail.

I opened the mail today. The physical. And the virtual.

The virtual mail held calls for help. There is a cat in a ceiling in Ithaca. And a pregnant cat on the streets of Waverly.

The physical mail held two cards. One in my home mailbox, with a check for $150 from Maestro's rescuer (Maetro's kind adopter, see what your choice has wrought?) and one in my Wildrun P.O. Box for $200 from Shakespeare's adopter.

$350 which will do cats much good. It will cover our vet account balance, with a generous amount left over.

Not to mention that someone (Amazon knows who?) donated $100 (two $50 donations) this last month via this blog's Amazon.com donation button.

So, Waverly folks, set your traps with abandon! Get your pregnant kitty and also Orange Juice, and let me know if you need traps, since I picked one more up from the NSYWMA conference.

Donations are like stars from the sky for me. I regard each one with appreciative surprise and amazement. For so many years, we didn't even ask for adoption fees, and every single dollar came out-of-pocket. For, what...15 years?

I will always remember our first donation. We decided that we would fix all the cats on the fast food strip in Ithaca in 2002. I made this seemingly absurd announcement at work, and Nancy J. of Ithaca College walked into my tiny closet of an office and handed me a check for $600. 12 years of nothing, to one moment of everything.

Stars from the sky.

Most of this past two years of generosity I must attribute to this weblog. When speaking at a conference last week, I asked for a show of hands and only one person had a blog for their shelter. Look what our small 100 reader blog has done for our small rescue. It has provided volunteers, donations, adoptions, and help (resources and info from our commenters). Imagine what a good 1000-reader blog would do for a small humane society? Please encourage your shelter to invite their community into their day-to-day work with a blog!

Let your readers be stars from the sky. Even those who cannot afford to give dollars nonetheless visit, listen, and gives one more tick on your stats, which makes you sigh with relief that Somebody Cares.

It's gotten to the point that we aren't the only ones rescuing cats on this blog.

You are.

Thank you!