The Community Cats Podcast

"In terms of surrender prevention, this is low-hanging fruit. It costs nothing." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Jessica Dolce, Compassion Fatigue + Grief Educator . Matt Wildman grew up with as many as nine rescue dogs and didn't have a real relationship with a cat until he was 26. That's when he met his girlfriend and her six cats. One of them, Shirley, licked...

"We're not hiding in back alleys in the dark at night. We're out there on the streets, on the front lines, and we're in city hall." This episode is sponsored-in-part by  Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Jessica Dolce, Compassion Fatigue + Grief Educator . Danielle Bays planned to be a veterinarian until a cat with his leg caught in a leghold trap was left in the parking lot of the clinic where she wo...

"In truth, we prove statistically how little funding is needed to create a real impact." This episode is sponsored-in-part by  Maddie's Fund , T NR Training Workshop Presented by Neighborhood Cats , and Jessica Dolce, Compassion Fatigue + Grief Educator . Daniel Leung got into TNR the way many of us do. He worked on a farm in college, ignored his manager's warning never to feed the stray cats, and...

"Cats aren't spicy. They're not mean. They're just scared." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Jessica Dolce, Compassion Fatigue + Grief Educator . Berlin Waters grew up in a house full of cats, with a mom who handled TNR for the neighborhood, and she's been a cat lover ever since. That lifelong interest led her to a master's in shelter medicine, where her research...

"When we say age is not a disease, we also mean it for the youngest." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Jessica Dolce, Compassion Fatigue + Grief Educator . Jordyn Purpura started out smuggling orphaned raccoons into his childhood bedroom. Twelve years of neonatal fostering later, he's in his final year of veterinary school, chasing a gap he kept running into from...

"Today's inside cat is tomorrow's outside cat." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and The Community Cat Clinic . Eve Salimbene spent her career in the legal field before moving into animal welfare 26 years ago — and by her own admission, she was a dog person until she landed in Polk County, Florida. There she found a county with groups working on dogs and essentially n...

"It's okay to be small and grassroots." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and The Community Cat Clinic . Robyn Alcock and Jen Scott joined host Stacy LeBaron to talk about Feral Fixers TNR Club, the Jersey City nonprofit they co-founded in 2024 alongside Kathryn Parker after years of trapping independently. In just two years, the all-volunteer group — who all keep full...

"It's about knowing your limits, knowing where you are energy-wise, time-wise, resource-wise, and just doing what you can — and knowing that is enough, and that is making a difference." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Neighborhood Cats TNR Certification Workshop . Jen Blough returns to the podcast after nearly a decade away — she was featured in the show's first...

"There's not a lot of that — you don't really hear about cat parks or cat meetups. So I wanted to try and change that." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and The Community Cat Clinic . Darein Gray never set out to build a pet-industry platform — he's an IT guy by trade, working in data and business analytics. But when he noticed there was no real gathering space for ca...

"The environment we build around a cat shapes her outcome more than any single intervention we can ever make." his episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and The Community Cat Clinic . Jodi Belongié has spent more than 25 years in animal welfare and shelter medicine, driven by a question that traces back to age 14, when she talked her way into fostering an abandoned pregnant cat...

This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and The Community Cat Clinic . Corinne Bourgoin returns to the podcast five years after her first appearance, and the numbers show what's changed: the MSPCA Boston Adoption Center's return-to-home rate for cats hit 33% in 2025, more than six times the roughly 5% national average. She draws a careful distinction between "return to owner...

This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and The Community Cat Clinic . Sandra Cagan spent decades in property management before a milestone birthday and a brief human-interest news story about a New York cat cafe sent her in a new direction. She cold-emailed her county commissioner in Lake County, Florida — "You're gonna think I'm crazy, but this is what I want to do" — and...

"People have to feel like they are making a difference, not earning a buck." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Neighborhood Cats' TNR Certification Workshop . Debra Magaldi never set out to run a nonprofit. What began as feeding a neighborhood stray in her alley turned into a chance encounter with Helen Sanders herself, and after Helen's passing in 2005, a small fu...

"It is not a lack of care or love. They love, love, love their cats. They would do anything to give their cat a longer life." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Feline Infectious Disease Summit 2026 . Host Stacy LeBaron talks with Gina Fortunato, Executive Director of CATalyst Council, and Kristin Wuhrman, the organization's Chair and co-founder/Chief Experience Off...

"The more I work in this field, the more there is to learn — and there's multiple strategies that you have to implement." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Feline Infectious Disease Summit 2026 . Pallavi Kamath grew up fostering kittens in Mumbai, studied animal science at UC Davis, earned a master's in animal public policy, and returned home to lead The Feline Fou...

"The goal isn't so much a set number as the area, and 100% sterilization — which is a lofty goal. But the only thing we can do is keep going." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Feline Infectious Disease Summit 2026 . Louise Holton has been working to protect cats for decades and across continents — from TNR work with the Johannesburg SPCA in the 1970s, to helping e...

"That's my own formula — passion and compassion tempered by dedication and humor." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Drop Traps: Beginning and Advanced Certification Workshop . After more than five decades behind the exam table, Dr. Kevin Lynch has treated thousands of pets, mentored generations of veterinary staff, and built one of Long Island's longest-running an...

"We may not all be the same organization, but we all have a very similar goal, and that is a better world for cats ultimately." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Drop Traps: Beginning and Advanced Certification Workshop . To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Community Cats Podcast, host Stacy LeBaron is joined by Kristen Petrie, Community Cats Central's Tech...

"You can both celebrate them and advocate for them at the same time." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Drop Traps: Beginning and Advanced Certification Workshop . Dan Rimada didn't set out to start a movement. He just started noticing cats. During the stillness of COVID, when New York City slowed down enough to actually look around, he began noticing the cats livi...

"With animal welfare, we're basically waiting till the roof falls in — when the animals are at the shelter, that's the roof falling in. We have to catch them earlier." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and The Kitten Conference . What if the animal welfare system stopped waiting for families to walk through the shelter door — and started showing up before they ever got...

"Mother Nature provides us with all the food and medicine that we need. Food is medicine — and it is the number one thing you can do for any person or animal to help them stay healthy and help their immune system operate." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and The Kitten Conference . What if the best medicine for your community cats isn't found in a bottle — but in a b...

"When we look at things on a neighborhood level and we're noticing patterns, noticing new colonies — when something's predictable, it's preventable." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and The Kitten Conference . What does it look like to build a community cat program from scratch — not just logistically, but with real intention about how change happens in a neighborhoo...

"If you wanna have a real superpower, learn cat first aid." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Strategies to Reunite Lost Cats with Families Certification Workshop and Increasing Your Impact With Targeted TNR Certification Workshop . Cats are both predator and prey — and that dual nature means they respond to emergencies unlike any other animal. They have five weapo...

"If we all came together to solve the problem, to solve the issue, and work together — those are the areas that we would see the most improvement." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and Strategies to Reunite Lost Cats with Families Certification Workshop and Increasing Your Impact With Targeted TNR Certification Workshop . The kittens are coming. We know it every sprin...

"Rescue and adoption actually don't scale. It doesn't matter how many you do—you're not preventing more from showing up." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund , OcuTrap , and The Community Cat Clinic . In this compelling episode of the Community Cats Podcast, host Stacey LeBaron sits down with Will Zweigart, the visionary behind Flatbush Cats and creator of the investigative podcast...