WWL TV featued our founder, Lynn Chiche, in a television interview and article:
Almost 30 years ago, a friend invited Lynn Chiche to a lecture at a veterinary school.
“He said, ‘You will never transport your way out of animal overpopulation. You will never rescue your way out. You will never adopt your way out. You will only spay-neuter your way out,’” Chiche, 77, remembers.
Those words inspired her to visit animal shelters to see the animal overpopulation crisis firsthand.
“It was a 5-to-1 ratio,” Chiche said. “They were killing five cats to every one dog, having to, and they said ‘if you really want to work with us to accomplish zero euthanasia, then you need to start with the cats, because they’re the ones taking a beating right now.’”
So, for nearly three decades, Lynn Chiche has been saving one cat at a time through her nonprofit called SpayMart. It’s a big enterprise with a hundred volunteers and countless donors. There’s a 27-acre sanctuary with a shelter in Picayune, Mississippi; a charity hospital in the works in Metairie; an adoption site in Elmwood; and a thrift store on Jefferson Highway, where every penny goes to helping the animals.