Seventy-five-year-old Terry Lauerman has always loved cats.
After he retired, Terry decided to start volunteering at his local shelter—Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This rescue group takes in cats with special needs who would most likely be put down at other shelters. Safe Haven lets the kitties roam around in their cage-free sanctuary, and they take care of all their medical expenses.
Terry asked the staff at the shelter if he could come in and brush the cats. The staff quickly agreed.
Terry started coming into the shelter for about three hours every day. He’d sit on one of the shelter’s couches and brush the cats. Then, he often fell asleep with one of the cats in his arms!
The shelter staff loved having Terry around, and they thought it was great that he took cat-naps! In September 2018, they shared a post about Terry on their Facebook page.
To the shelter’s surprise, the post went hugely viral. It soon received more than 93,000 likes, and it was shared more than 25,000 times.
We are so lucky to have a human like Terry. Terry just came along one day and introduced himself. He said he'd like to…
Posted by Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary Inc. onTuesday, September 18, 2018
Terry and the shelter staff were amazed to see how many people liked this post. One of the shelter staff members said that modest Terry was unfazed by all the attention.
After the post went viral, many people began donating to the shelter. The staff was shocked to see how much money was coming in.
“Our donations have increased!” the shelter’s founder, Elizabeth Feldhausen, told Bored Panda. “Normally, we’d make between $3,000-$4,000 per month. This week, we have reached $30,000! This is amazing because we do rely solely on donation!”
Feldhausen explained that the money is going to go towards the cat’s vet bills, and it will also be used to make the building more energy efficient:
“The proceeds will likely go to adding additional quarantine rooms, so that we can save more cats more quickly, vet bills, and re-insulating the building so that we are more energy efficient this winter. We’ll have more than enough for all of those things, so some will go to savings and be our “rainy day fund”.”
Since the post about Terry went viral, Safe Haven has shared lots more photos of Terry napping with the shelter’s cats. Safe Haven’s Facebook followers are always thrilled to see more photos of Terry and his friends!
Terry hasn’t let the attention go to his head—in fact, he still refuses to make his own Facebook page. He says it’s hard enough keeping up with his email! Terry is still simply enjoying spending time with all of his favorite cats.
Terry is a kindhearted cat lover who was able to help raise money for an animal shelter simply by being himself. If you’d like to see more photo of Safe Haven’s cats, check out their Facebook page. If you’d like to help Safe Haven with their lifesaving work, consider donating to their organization.
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