Sarah grew up on a ranch, where caring for animals wasn’t a hobby — it was simply part of life from the time she was a little girl. That lifelong love of animals led her to years of volunteering and fostering with local rescues, work she was drawn to and never left behind. Pookie’s Place was born from two losses. It’s named in honor of Sarah’s brother, John “Pookie,” a devoted cat lover who passed away in 2002. But the rescue itself came later, after the death of a kitten named Ghost — a loss that left Sarah unwilling to keep watching cats suffer and die with no one stepping in to help. She decided to be that someone. What started as one person’s refusal to look away has grown into a foster-based rescue serving Central Texas, built on a network of volunteer homes willing to open their doors to cats in need. Under Sarah’s leadership, Pookie’s Place has grown from grief into purpose: a place where sick kittens, senior cats, and cats with nowhere else to go find both medical care and a soft place to land. Sarah oversees every part of the organization — fundraising, volunteer coordination, partnerships, and the daily decisions that keep foster cats fed, vetted, and loved. Outside the rescue, she’s a wife, mother, and grandmother, and her family remains her top priority alongside the cats. She believes in telling the truth about rescue work, hard parts included, because that honesty is what builds a community willing to show up when it matters most.