Mary Anne Miller, founder of CATS Inc., based in Sweet Home, Oregon, has several photos of herself as a little girl. However, if you look closely at the “companion” she’s carrying, you won’t see a doll or a teddy bear. Instead she’s carrying a big gold and white male kitty named (of course) Goldie. Mary Anne admits her love of cats came from her father, a mail carrier, who used rescue kittens during his rounds, and bring them home in the safety of his mail sack.

Rural Oregon is a perfect storm for cat neglect, abuse and abandonment. CATS Inc. and Mary Anne specialize in high risk cats. She and her volunteers help ferals, “unadoptable” strays, bottle babies, abused older cats and kitties with disabilities. How many cats has she rescued and rehomed? Even Mary Anne doesn’t know. She stopped counting years ago at 500.

She doesn’t like the term “feral cat” because it affirms a negative stereotype. ” Instead she calls those beautiful and misunderstood animals “strays with feral tendencies.” Mary Anne works to socialize them and find homes or barns where they can live out their lives in peace.

Mary Anne has also established several websites to help people with their feline issues. A kitten website, www.kitten-rescue.com is dedicated to help others care for stray kittens. This site has helped people around the world raise bottle babies. Recently, she received an email from a soldier in Iraq who had found two, three-day old kittens and wanted to know how to help them. Because of Mary Anne’s advice, the kittens are now thriving. Just as the Mary Anne’s father carried his rescues in the mail bag, the soldier later told her that he was carrying his companions around in his ruck sack. For Mary Anne Miller, that’s what it’s all about. Her other website, Felinexpress.com, won the Cat Writers’ Association President’s Award designating it as the best of the best.

Her personal mission is to help, not only cats who enter her life, but also the needy cats and kittens who wander into the lives of total strangers. She admits she has tried to get out of rescue. “Every time I try to pull away from this mission, something pulls me back. Once I found a kitten under the grocery cart at the store. Another time I went to a 7-Eleven and a mackerel tabby jumped into my car and made himself right at home. So I just keep going because the need is out there. If I can change one life by placing a socialized cat into a loving home then nothing else matters.”

Like most rescues groups, CATS Inc., charges an adoption fee, screens adopters and preforms home inspections before granting adoptions. You can help Mary Anne and her special-needs charges, by choosing CATS Inc. as your AdoptAShelter.com charity and then shopping at your favorite online stores.