HISTORY OF “10TH LIFE”

November 23, 2003

How it began

Maury Swee, founder of The “10th Life” Sanctuary, was sitting on the front porch of his Tamarac, Florida home one morning in July 1997, when he saw a skinny stray cat eating out of a neighbor’s garbage can. That’s all it took to get him involved: first, he started feeding “Hobo” (the skinny stray), and then others appeared. In fact, Hobo and 42 other strays were living (and multiplying) in an abandoned house not far away.

            Maury continued feeding this colony and launched a crusade to trap, neuter and release them in an adjacent field when the abandoned house was sold. Hobo, and a few others, became Maury’s house pets.

            Then the empty field became a shopping center and the colony migrated to a wooded area that, fortunately, became a county park.

            Maury found homes for some of them. The park attracted other abandoned cats and in 1999 there were over 100 cats living there. The county was not happy — but agreed to let Maury trap them again and place them in “foster care.”

            Maury developed a network of “foster parents” and took a few more into his home.

            It was getting expensive, fixing the cats, providing food to the foster homes, and paying for medical care. Maury and his wife, Sandy, personally paid for almost all of it.

            By 2001, word had spread, “Please take my ferals....” All of a sudden Maury and Sandy were caring for 200 mostly feral cats in foster care — and at their home! It was time to form a not-for-profit corporation so they could raise money to pay for the food, medical care, and buy land where the all the ferals could live-out their lives.

The corporation’s first sanctuary

The “10th Life” Sanctuary, Inc. was officially formed on September 17, 2001, as a not-for-profit Florida Corporation and received it’s 501(c)(3) status from IRS on February 14, 2002.

            In late February 2002, we started looking to buy land for our sanctuary in the Ft. Pierce, Florida area when we heard through the grapevine that a woman, Mimi Wriedt, was willing to donate her 7½ acres of land (with a home and large storage building) to a 501(c)(3) animal rescue group. Mimi’s land was located near the fast growing equestrian development known as Caloosa in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida (a suburb north and west of the city of West Palm Beach).

            Mimi had only three conditions: the group who received the donated land must (1) be “no-kill,” (2) must provide care for her existing 250 cats and farm animals, and (3) must use the proceeds from the sale of her donated land (if and when that became necessary) for another no-kill shelter.

            We happily agreed to her conditions, and on June 27, 2002, the transaction was completed.

            We secured an $80,000 mortgage, started building several containment pens, and moved the cats in foster care to our new property. Mimi, who lived on the property, stayed on and supervised.

            Our plan was to trap Mimi’s free-roaming cats, place them in one of the containment pens, medically evaluate them, and start building large, fully enclosed, “habitats” for all of the cats to live-out their lives.

12 cats per enclosure?

But, a storm was brewing.

            Before we even had a chance to contain all of Mimi’s free-roaming cats, Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control, who said they would “work with us” (because there were no “Sanctuary” laws on the books), hired a new Director who was going to enforce the current law that only allowed 12 cats per enclosure. Legally, it was OK to place 12 cats in a space measuring only 7' x 7' x 2' (way too small, in our opinion, for 12 cats). But, it didn’t matter if the enclosure was as big as a football field: only 12 cats per enclosure.

            There were a number of other issues that we couldn’t agree on, but that was the one rule that forced us to move.

Moved to Clewiston

We heard that an old 5 acre dog kennel in Hendry County (about 100 miles away) was available, and, after checking with Hendry County Animal Care and Control, we rented (with an option to buy) the kennel. It took us two months, but we completed moving all of our cats to the new facility in January 2003.

            It’s about 20 miles west of Clewiston, FL and is surrounded by orange groves and 1,000 head of cattle (no “complaining” neighbors in sight!).

            With Mimi’s permission, we placed the Palm Beach property up for sale, found a buyer, and, sold the property. Mimi moved with us (thank goodness!).

Unlike Palm Beach County, Hendry County has no limits on the number of cats we can place in our fully enclosed sanctuary.

We (and the cats!) are happy in Hendry County.