Saving tiny lives every day, the VBAS Kitten Foster Program has become a life-saving machine and a critical part of our organization. Started in 2001, the Kitten Foster Program (KFP) began as a volunteer initiative to help save the lives of hundreds of kittens, some only days old, that need round the clock care to survive.
The vast majority of these kittens would not survive without placement into foster homes. “Kittens are the most vulnerable population in any shelter,” says Ellen Buchsbaum, Director of the VBAS Kitten Foster Program. “The volunteers and foster families of KFP work hard to give every kitten the best possible chance we can.”
Recognizing the need, volunteers developed the program and began recruiting fosters. What began with a handful of volunteers and fosters has grown to include over 100 foster families, each taking one or more litters of kittens each year.
KFP continues to be a 100% volunteer and foster driven program that fosters over 300 kittens annually. In 2023, KFP fostered 385 kittens by providing food, litter, medical supplies and emergency medical care. 2024 is turning into a *very* busy year, and with the help of their very committed foster families, we anticipate fostering over 400 kittens. It takes a lot of food, litter and medicine to save so many kittens. Last year the VBAS provided 747 cases of wet food, 1,770 pounds of kibble and SIX TONS of litter to foster families to care for their kittens. We also provided over $20,000 in emergency care, medical and non-medical supplies.
The VBAS sees a variety of kittens coming through the doors each year, and each requires a different set of skills from our dedicated fosters. Bottle Babies are the tiniest kittens arriving at the shelter. They need the most help and must be bottle fed every few hours until they’re old enough to eat on their own.
Some kittens arrive at the shelter scared, hissy and generally unhappy with human interaction. Our team of Kitten Charm School fosters help socialize kittens, and provide them with a little love and TLC and help turn them into loving, adoptable kittens. Socializing scared kittens is a lot of fun and incredibly rewarding, especially that moment when you finally get them to become a cuddly kitten.
Kittens can also arrive with a variety of medical conditions that need attention. The Shelter’s Medical Team works alongside our fosters to make sure that every kitten receives the medical care it needs to grow up healthy, strong, and adoptable.
“It’s a lot of work.” Says KFP director Ellen Buchsbaum, “But watching these tiny kittens thrive – going from needing a bottle to eating solid food, learning to walk, learning to play, or going from hissy to lovebugs – it’s a uniquely rewarding experience. I’ve never experienced anything else like it.”
Kitten foster parent, Bev Daproza, has been fostering kittens since she began as a VBAS volunteer in 2018. “I became a foster because of my love for animals and caring for them. I was looking to adopt a pair of kittens and saw that Burbank had a foster program and my husband encouraged me to look into it. The rest is history.”
Bev specializes in helping our special needs kittens in foster, which include kittens that may be blind, deaf, missing an eye or limb, or have suffered other injuries. She goes on to explain how rewarding the process is, “When you get a kitten that is days old and totally depends on you for survival and you are able to care for this tiny kitten and see it grow to be a healthy, playful kitten and in the end find an amazing forever home. The love that the kittens give back to you is extremely rewarding. There is nothing like a kitten snuggling up to you and purring. I love what I do – It brings me joy.”
If you’d like to become a kitten foster parent, please click here. If you’d like to make a donation to help support our kitten foster program, click here. Or, if you’d like to adopt one of our available kittens go to https://thevbas.org/adopt/adoptable-cats/
