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Volunteer Melissa Rene of North Haven holds Ty at the Branford Compassion Club Feline Rescue Center on Foxon Road in North Branford on July 13, 2022.

Volunteer Sheila Rubin England pets Orzo at the Branford Compassion Club Feline Rescue Center on Foxon Road in North Branford on July 13, 2022.

Volunteer Sheila Rubin England reaches for Miles at the Branford Compassion Club Feline Rescue Center on Foxon Road in North Branford on July 13, 2022.

Orzo roams in the main room at the Branford Compassion Club Feline Rescue Center on Foxon Road in North Branford on July 13, 2022.

NORTH BRANFORD — The Branford Compassion Club is a little busy. With kitten season at its peak, the feline rescue and adoption nonprofit also is juggling a full plate of fundraising events as it celebrates its 25th anniversary.

The highlights of the celebration include a gala Sept. 23 at Branford’s Pine Orchard Yacht & Country Club, followed by its annual signature event, Animal Awareness Day, Oct. 2, a free event on the Branford Green featuring the Blessing of the Animals as well as vendors, dog demos, music and food trucks.

Grammy Award winner Julie Gold of “From a Distance” fame will entertain at the gala, emceed by Branford arts impresario and philanthropist Colin Sheehan, with silent and live auctions gaveled by Branford auctioneer Tom Gagliardi, some special honors, dinner and a champagne toast. Tickets are $150, available at mjohnson27@snet.net or by sending a check to Branford Compassion Club, care of Margaret Johnson at P.O. Box 768, Branford, CT 06405.

“We are still here 25 years later because of our passion and perseverance,” says BCC President Johnson. “It’s been a long, rocky road, but we have beaten the odds. We are the little engine that could. … It’s time to celebrate our accomplishments, thank our donors, honor our volunteers and look to the future.”

Those accomplishments include growing from a tiny, grassroots movement to an organization with more than 150 volunteers, opening a shelter with 70 cats cared for daily by a volunteer corps of 50, seven feral colonies fed by 12 feeders and a paid shelter manager — all working to fulfill its mission to control the area’s feline population by promoting the need for spay-neutering and caring for and rehoming abandoned felines.

BCC was founded in 1997 by three ambitious, cat-loving women, Eunice Lasala, Annmarie Lorello and Friskie Wheeler, soon joined by Marilyn Kennedy, Joan Corcoran and Perdita Norwood, to address that homeless feline problem in the days before there was a Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter. Little-known fact: It was this group and its band of faithful followers that led the campaign which raised $100,000 in seed money toward making the town shelter a reality.

Shelter Manager Lianne Soucy took the occasion of the milestone — and the height of kitten season — to reflect on the shelter residents, many of whom are the result of pet owners’ failure to spay-neuter their animals, which can place both a logistical and financial strain on the organization.

By recent count, there were 12 moms with a total of 56 kittens, and eight homeless kittens being fostered by 14 volunteers and Soucy. That’s in addition to the 70 cats cared for in the daily shifts at its Feline Rescue and Adoption Center, which opened in February 1997 at 2037 Foxon Road under the leadership of then-President Mary Mellows.

Soucy calls it the cuteness factor: “Holding onto kittens for too long and then suddenly finding your 6-month-old is pregnant can affect their future placement potential,” she says, because “It can sometimes be very difficult to socialize kittens after three months. Even though it’s adorable to watch kittens running around … you do a disservice to the cats.”

Unsterilized cats who are let outside can get pregnant or impregnate “three or four times a year, and, yes, even with a littermate,” says Soucy. “… Or worse, be exposed to constant danger from diseases like distemper, FIV, fight wounds, or killed by predators.”

When BCC leaders reminisce about the many highs and lows of a quarter-century of rescuing and finding homes for homeless felines, the tough cases they remember inevitably are the abandoned cats or the aging or incapacitated owners who are forced to give up a beloved pet for an alternate living arrangement. Assuring them that their fur babies will be lovingly rehomed provides them some comfort.

“Having a place that will help support these animals and get them into homes takes a lot of stress off these people,” says Soucy. “They worry about them and want them to be taken care of. Working together as a team is a win-win situation.”

The veteran members have seen it all in 25 years, including things right out of the movies:

— Two cats picked up by an eagle and dropped out of the sky, a la the famous scene with the dog in the Sandra Bullock film “The Proposal.” (They suffered only minor injuries and were soon adopted.)

—The all-white, deaf kitten scooped up from a trailer park, who then got stuck under the dashboard, requiring the total disassembly of volunteer Brenda Eldridge’s new family van.

— Ten kittens left in a toy box in 2015 at Lowe’s home improvement store in New Haven that turned out to be two litters, which were divided for fostering between two members — all successfully adopted. There was a line around the building the next day after BCC noted the rescue on its Facebook page.

— There have been cats thrown out of cars, cats abandoned in parks, plucked from eating garbage out of dumpsters on New Haven streets; a preemie, who, as the only survivor of a litter of seven, waged a furious but ultimately futile battle to survive, despite round-the-clock hourly feedings by Soucy and another volunteer; coyote attacks, death by untreated disease or exposure.

The organization has come a long way from the days of trapping cats, then begging and borrowing spaces around town, such as Shelley’s Garden Center, to showcase the adoptable kitties, or placing the others in colonies that a few actually kept in their backyards. They can brag that they have saved thousands of cats through the kindness and generosity of their adopters.

“Personally, I’m just overjoyed we reached our 25th year, and I hope it’s the first of many more milestones,” says Lasala, BCC’s first president. “… It’s very reassuring to have the community support that we do from friends and people we don’t even know.”

Donna Doherty is the former arts editor of the Register and a longtime member of Branford Compassion Club.