If You Build It: Starting a Cat Sanctuary From Nothing

Do you remember the movie Field of Dreams? For some reason, it was always playing on the TV in the waiting room of my college health clinic over 20 years ago. I was in and out of that clinic a lot back then, dealing with chronic health issues that I still deal with today.

That’s not really the important part, though. What stuck with me was one line from the film: “If you build it, they will come.”

That sentence lodged itself in my head and never quite left. Two decades later, I think about it more than ever because now we’re building a cat sanctuary from nothing, hoping and praying it grows into something big.

I’d love to see our dream fully realized in my lifetime, so I choose to live with hope. Even if I don’t get to see the whole thing come together, I already know I’ve done a lot of good for these cats. That has to count for something.

The Line Isn’t Quite True — But It Keeps Me Going

Here’s the thing about that line, it worked out almost effortlessly for Ray Kinsella in the movie. He built the field and the players simply showed up.

In the real world, it doesn’t work that way. Nothing about building something from scratch is effortless. Yet, somehow, that line still keeps me moving forward. Maybe it’s less a promise and more a permission slip. Maybe I’m giving myself permission to start before having proof that it’ll work.

Starting a Business Is Hard, Full Stop

It doesn’t matter whether you’re starting a nonprofit or a “regular” business, the work is nearly identical. The only real difference is what you’re building toward. Businesses build around products, but as a nonprofit we build around a mission.

One place where that overlap is most obvious is money. A business needs to sell something. A nonprofit needs donors, grants, or some other way to become sustainable. For us, that “something else” is a thrift store.

We’re starting online but we’re confident it can work. This is because other organizations in our area are already succeeding by using this same model. Confidence isn’t the same as proof, so we can’t simply sit back and wait for the model to prove itself before we act.

This is why we’re starting from the same premise as that line in the movie: if we build it, they will come.

The Reason We Can’t Wait

Currently, we have 13 cats living in our sanctuary. Actually, if you count the ones we’re currently fostering, there are 19. Every one of their lives depends on us figuring this out. They need food, housing, and medical care. None of this happens if we don’t have the necessary resources.

That’s the part that makes “if you build it, they will come” feel less like a nice quote and more like a mission statement. We don’t have the luxury of waiting for certainty. We have cats who need us now, so we’re building the thrift store, building the sanctuary, and building the hope right alongside it. We’re moving ahead, one step at a time, trusting that the people who care will find their way to us, the same way we found our way to these cats.

You Can Be Part of the “They” Who Come

Every field needs someone to help it grow.

We’re building this one step, one cat at a time. Thank you for being here for it!