Marinela Banu
Marinela and her husband love cats.
She hosts over 30 cats on her property and feeds over 140 street cats. She is a fervent supporter of spay/neuter as a means of humanely manage the stray cat population and feeding feral cat colonies.
In her words, she took a passion for cats and turned it into a legal activity when she applied for non profit status for her organization. Her association is called Mau of Bastet.
Bastet is the Egyptian goddess of cats and Mau is a cute way of saying meow in Romanian language.
She simply loves cats and wants to do good by them. Once in a while she rescues dogs too, but the main beneficiary of her rescue work is cats.
One of the cases that impressed me was Parlog's story. This Tom cat was rescued by Marinela when he was already 5 or 6 years old. Poor little guy had kidney problems and Marinela did her best to treat him back to health despite the vet costs. She grew very attached to Parlog and witnessing her struggle to make him well was a testimony of how much rescuers love each and every animal they rescue. Parlog's story should be a reminder to be kind to the rescuers.
Marinela is also an activist. She's the admin of Pisici group which has over 10,000 active members.