Local cat shelter Hillsdale Felines and Friends works to change the world one cat at a time, and they are teaming up with the Hillsdale College Film Club to produce a commercial about the stray crisis in the community.
Kátia Sherman, associate professor of Spanish at Hillsdale College, is the founder and benefactor of the shelter. After opening in September 2020, Hillsdale Felines and Friends has spayed, neutered, and found homes for more than 200 local stray cats.
“I put the building there myself thinking I was going to change the world, or at least the cat world,” Sherman said.
While the shelter receives about $150 in donations per month, the cost of operating the facilities, the medical procedures, and the food for the cats exceeds $2,000 monthly.
In order to help feature the shelter and earn more funding, Hillsdale Felines and Friends and the Hillsdale College Film Club are teaming up to produce a short commercial about the stray cat crisis in the community.
The idea to start a media campaign and spread the word about this local problem came to Sherman after noticing that one of her students, sophomore Donald McArdle, is the president of the Film and Production Club.
“I was just talking with Kátia one day, and she presented the idea to me,” McArdle said. “I thought it was something the Film and Production Club could get done.”
The Film and Production Club has begun work to document and collect footage of stray cats in the Hillsdale area.
“In the most basic sense, there are three steps to a project like this: gathering media (visual and auditory), putting the media together into a single video, and getting that video where it will be seen,” McArdle said.
There is currently no timeline for when this video will be released. Getting the footage is completely unpredictable due to the fact that the cats wander and move around town, according to McArdle.
As the winter season quickly approaches, the problem gets more urgent.
“Half of them are sick, they’re all full of fleas and mites and are underweight,” Sherman said.
“We’re hoping that this advertisement will spread awareness of the stray cat problem in Hillsdale and to raise money for Hillsdale Feline and Friends to install a neutering and spaying suite to help with this issue,” McArdle said.
There are currently 90 students working with the Film and Production Club, and Hillsdale Felines and Friends has around 20 student volunteers.
At the shelter, the volunteer process is unsupervised, something that Sherman says is made possible through the Hillsdale Honor Code.
“They all have a key combination to the place, I don’t keep track of what they do there,” Sherman said. “All I ask is that they go and love on the cats and get those cats to understand that people are on their side.”
Olivia Latimer, a sophomore, started volunteering at the shelter a year ago with her softball teammates.
“One of the cool things about getting to visit with all the cats is seeing their individual personalities. Some of the cats are always at the door waiting for you to come in and immediately start meowing and purring as soon as you step inside,” she said.
Kelly Behling, also a sophomore, speaks on her experience at the shelter.
“Having the opportunity to spend time at Dr. Sherman’s cat shelter was rewarding as I was able to serve the community and help cats in need. It was also a great way to destress after a long day of classes,” Behling said.
In order to expand and accommodate the influx of stray cats, the shelter needs all the help it can get.
“We receive three to four heart-wrenching emails and three to four, if not more, voicemail messages per week saying ‘my house burned,’ ‘my grandmother died,’” Sherman said. “All of these people are looking for somewhere to send their unwanted pets. If I had a shelter the size of a football field, it’d be full of cats,” she said.
The goal of this media campaign is to bolster Hillsdale Feline and Friends in their crusade to put an end to the countless stray cats roaming the streets. Cats are homeless due to constant reproduction when they have not been spayed or neutered, as well as people abandoning their domestic pets.
The shelter has plans to bring veterinarians and veterinary students from Michigan State University to help spay and neuter the cats.
“I’ve never been a cat lady, it wasn’t until I came here and experienced the problem firsthand,” Sherman said. “I can’t go to bed every night knowing there are 800 cats and kittens absolutely freezing.”
If students are interested in helping the cause, they can volunteer at the shelter or help the film club collect footage. Any videos shot can be sent to dmcardle@hillsdale.edu.
