HOW TO HELP
To contact Heart’s Rescue Sanctuary, visit 621 S. Breiel Blvd., Unit 14; call 513-217-7440; or email heartsrescue621@gmail.com
She’s either crazy or compassionate depending on your point of view.
Growing up in the Middletown area, Lesli Martin wanted to be a large-animal veterinarian, but as so often happens, life got in the way of her dreams. She married at a young age, then started a family.
From doctor to mom that quick.
Now Martin’s life has come full circle, and she’s never been happier. The 50-year-old has retired from her treasurer position with the Kings Local Schools District, and runs an animal sanctuary in Middletown.
There are no lions, tigers or bears in her world, but you’re likely to say “oh my” when you walk into Heart’s Rescue Sanctuary that’s tucked down a hallway in the Middletown Shopping Center on South Breiel Boulevard. There you will be greeted by Martin and her colony of cats.
Please close the door behind you.
The cats — last week there with 38 of them — are everywhere in the 810-square-foot building. There are cats in cages, cats walking on the wall dividers, cats playing with string, cats sleeping in the chairs, and cats sleeping in the window. Martin knows most of them by the numbers they’re assigned in the computer, but some she calls by name.
Martin adopts about two cats per week, but the number in her sanctuary never seems to decrease. There is more supply than demand.
That’s because, as she said, Middletown has a cat population problem. She said Middletown has the second most feral cats of any city in Ohio, though she didn’t know who conducted the research.
But what she does know is there are colonies of feral cats located throughout the city, from the East End to the South End to downtown. She said there are at least four cat colonies at Smith Park, a downtown park. She estimates there are more than 600 feral cats in the city.
To combat the cat over population, Martin said two of her seven volunteers, Wayne and Lisa Oney, periodically conduct trap and rescue missions in the city. After being caught, the cats are either spayed or neutered, then returned to where they were found in the city.
Martin started rescuing cats and dogs about 18 years ago, then opened the sanctuary in the shopping center in August 2014. She said people have adopted 192 cats since January 2013.
Kittens are $125 to adopt and cats are $100, she said. All of them have been spayed, neutered, micro-chipped and fully vaccinated. All of the proceeds from the adoption fees are used to fund the organization, she said. She also receives grants and holds fund-raisers as a way to operate the sanctuary.
So why would someone donate their time to save cats and dogs that have been abused or neglected? Who has the time or energy for a task that has no end? She chases her tail for a living.
“Somebody has to do it,” she said when asked why anyone would do such a thankless job. “Somebody has to help all of these cats and dogs.”
Every cat has a history, she said. One cat, fittingly named Lucky, was found with a bloody tail after some mischievous boys tried to cut it off with a butcher knife, she said.
Another cat was found under a pile of trash in a Dumpster. When Middletown police called Martin to tell her about the cat, she jumped in the Dumpster, pushed back the debris and rescued the cat now named Taj.
Of course, it was cold and raining.
Then there was the Middletown woman who hoarded cats and when she got evicted, she owned 37 of them. Most of them ended up at Heart’s Rescue, and have been adopted.
There are more stories, but you get the idea.
Martin, who graduated from Carlisle High School in 1982, attended Middletown schools until high school when she got expelled for fighting a female classmate.
Not a lot has changed since then. She’s still fighting, but now it’s all about felines.
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