One of the saddest parts about going back to school is leaving your family pet at home. What is even more heartbreaking is realizing how many animals have never had a home to call their own. Evelyn Pierce, president of the Bucknell Animal Rescue Club, is making it her mission to change that.
The Bucknell Animal Rescue Club began last year, with the goal of helping stray animals in Lewisburg. Though they have also aided baby squirrels and the duck outside of the ELC, the club mainly focuses on helping homeless cats. Shelters are often filled with cats who go unnoticed, and can’t take on any more. When Evelyn joined the club, she thought she was a dog person. She had no idea what “silly little creatures” kittens could be. Now, she’s the leader of a hand-on approach to bring cats from fields to foster homes in a matter of days.
Since taking on the role of president, Evelyn has focused on revamping and restructuring the club to build a sustainable foundation. This includes regular meetings, guest speakers, and active cooperation with the university. At its heart, the Animal Rescue Club’s first priority is always the animals. Club volunteers respond to calls or messages from Groupme and Nextdoor to find cats in need of help. They set traps and provide captured cats with much needed care, like spay and neuter appointments or flea baths. Kittens and friendly cats are socialized and placed in foster homes downtown or with faculty and staff. Feral cats that are well-accustomed to the streets are taken to a vet to be fixed and tagged before they are rereleased; a process known as “TNR: Trap, Neuter, Return.”
Rescue is not for the faint of heart. Evelyn is like an off-duty superhero, waiting for a call to spring into action. She’s crawled under 7th Street House, dumpster-dived, responded to Craigslist ads, and scooped up litters of black cats before Halloween, all in the name of giving an unloved animal a chance to feel wanted. She once even caught a cat with an empty, disengaged trap that she didn’t want to carry home, only for the cat to give birth to kittens a week later. It’s a job that Evelyn finds emotionally taxing, but incredibly rewarding. There’s nothing like seeing a cat find its forever home. She says, ““it makes my heart so warm, they have the whole world now.”
The unofficial mascot of the Animal Rescue Club is Henry, a tuxedo cat that had been outside for years that was found covered in scars. After being trapped by the club and inside for two days, Henry made a great escape from a second story window. Evelyn was determined to catch him herself, and show him the life he deserved. Henry, who Evelyn calls a “spoiled little prince,” is now an emotional support animal for a student on campus. He poses for pictures while lounging in his big bed surrounded by toys. “He really is King of the Room,” Evelyn beams.
Evelyn emphasizes that two of the main challenges faced by the club are funding and awareness; that, and well, storage. “My room is the Animal Rescue Club storage unit,” Evelyn admits. Rescue is daunting, and it requires a lot of moving parts and people to make it possible. The Animal Rescue Club is in desperate need of volunteers, fosters, and faculty participation. The club would not exist without students who are passionate about their mission and willing to keep it going.
If one thing is for sure, the Animal Rescue Club has a bright future ahead of it. Their next goal is to establish an Animal Rescue Affinity House, where animal lovers can live together and work towards the goal of saving more innocent pets from the streets. Evelyn would also like to plan more programming and provide more resources for stray cats. She hopes that someday the Bucknell Farm could even have a shed with food and shelter for their own farm cats. When asked what the best part of her job is, Evelyn couldn’t choose. “Oh everything!” she exclaimed. She describes animal rescue as an opportunity to watch growth and transformation from start to finish. “It’s amazing, you grab a cat out of a dumpster and now they’re someone’s best friend.”
For more information and to get involved, follow and DM @bucknellanimalrescue on Instagram.