Melissa
Melissa is our current Adoption/Medical Coordinator and a Board Member. She has been involved in animal welfare and veterinary medicine for 10+ years. She lives with her boyfriend in Tucson Arizona with their pets. She specializes in caring for the tiniest, sickest felines, as well as having experience with special needs cats/kittens. Melissa loves helping our foster families learn critical skills such as giving medications, administration of fluids and even tube feeding.
Alex
Alex is the Social Media/Data Entry Coordinator and a Board Member. She has been involved in various ways with animal care/well-being as long as she can remember, but in the past few years realized rescue & rehabilitation are her true passion along with education to the public of cat/dog welfare/well-being. She started fostering at her first job out of college (a no-kill shelter) and loved making a difference in the tiny lives of kittens and puppies♡ Now she loves fostering kittens of all types including medical cases, those needing socialization, or any that are just plain cute and needing a temporary home! She lives in California with her 2 rescue dogs and 3 rescue cats and is still very involved from a distance!
Cortney
Cortney is one of our Board Members and Behavior Coordinator. She has been fostering for over 15 years. She has focused on fostering cats and dogs but has also fostered other animals. She has been a dog trainer for over 15 years as well and works with adopters and rescue groups on dog training. Cortney specializes in handicapped animals, but also fosters several others. She has 2 personal cats who were both born with no front legs, several large breed dogs, horses, and more on her farm!
Kim
Kim fosters for SACR and sits on our Board of Directors. She also is part of the Foster Team and handles our finances and grants. Kim’s first kitten rescue was during her teen years when someone threw a kitten out of a car window. That incident left an indelible mark on her heart. Kim is married with 4 grown children, 4 dogs, 2 foster-fail kitties (the kids took all their cats with them, so they really needed more!) When not in Oro Valley, you’ll find Kim & her hubby traveling the country in an RV filled with their pets & even fosters!
Abby G.
Abby started her journey with SACR after losing her kitty companion, Alice in 2020. She adopted Simon after going back and forth between the idea of adopting or fostering. A year later, she was in a better situation to foster and had her first litter in February 2021. She has taken on lots of different kitties including medical cases, bottle babies and socialization cases. Since then she has become more active with SACR and runs our TikTok as well as took on the role of Adoption Event Coordinator.
Erica & Karissa
A mother/daughter team. Our family moved to Tucson from Los Angeles a few years ago. In LA we worked heavily with Los Angeles Guinea Pig Rescue, the largest piggy rescue in the U.S. We fostered the unsocialized, underweight and the pregnant mamas. Karissa was the youngest (at age 8 to be allowed to volunteer.) When we moved to AZ, we really wanted to get involved with the community through local rescue. Unfortunately, Tucson does not have a piggy rescue, so we decided to turn our attention to one of our other loves, KITTENS!! We have been fosters with SACR since launching this year. We have many personal animals of our own, which we attribute to well rounded, socialized, loving kittens. Fostering is a great way for my daughter & I to work together. Not to mention how great it feels to know you saved a life and helped an animal find their fur-ever family!
Ann
I’ve always loved animals, as a young child I was lucky enough to live right next to the Zoo! When we moved away, I took it upon myself to save all of my neighborhood cats, either by returning them to their owners or taking them to an informal cat rescuer, “Carol the cat lady” who lived just outside of town. She was awesome, and I credit her for all my crazy cat lady aspirations. Today I am a volunteer docent at the Reid Park zoo and am in school pursuing my bachelors in elementary Education.
The Almond Family
My family loves animals. We both grew up with all sorts of pets including dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits and various pocket pets. We have a house full of rescued love in the form of two Corgis, Miley and Atlas and two adult cats, Jolly and Luna. In 2019 we started fostering kittens for PACC and had seven babies successfully placed in their forever homes. We decided to support a local rescue in 2020 and found SACR. We are so happy we did and are having fun socializing babies. Atlas is out kitten wrangler, Luna makes sure they learn manners and my daughter teaches them how to snuggle. When not chasing kittens we can be found hiking, camping and spending time with friends.
Rachel
My foster journey began after I bought my house. We had five litters of kittens born in our yard in a year! After helping to get them all into rescues, and doing TNR on the parents, I decided to start fostering myself. Kittens are cute, but I also love to foster adults! I live with my husband and our four rescue cats, its quite the circus!
McGill Family
Chris and Miriam moved to the US from Europe. While in Tucson, our family has grown to include three children, two dogs, five backyard chickens, and occasional SACR foster cats/kittens. With our boys getting older it is important to us to teach them about respect, kindness, compassion, and volunteerism. One way our family is involved in the local Tucson community is with our therapy dog, Saya. One of our sons, Finn, is a registered junior handler with the Alliance of Therapy Dogs. He and Saya visit the UofA and senior facilities in Tucson to share smiles and lots of puppy love. We started to foster with SACR when we learned that 45 cats and kittens made their way to Tucson from a local, underfunded, outdoor shelter in Texas. With so many cats and kittens coming into SACR at once, we knew we needed to help. Our house is a loving, buzzing place which is great for our foster kittens to develop important socialization skills. The best thing about fostering with SACR for us is knowing that we make a difference together, saving a life, and helping an animal find their own amazing family.