The Foster Kitten Project

Mission: To provide vulnerable kittens with comprehensive medical care, including spaying and neutering, to prevent overpopulation, suffering, and the spread of disease.

Our founder, Jenni Riha, grew up in a rural area of Springfield, Nebraska. She graduated from Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in 2001 with a degree in Veterinary Technology.

In 2004 Jenni found her first kitten, Samantha. Samantha was found right after birth, with the umbilical cord was still attached. With no momma cat in sight, Jenni took Samantha in and cared for her. Samantha was Jenni’s first foster fail.

After continuing to take care of the occasional abandoned farm kitten, Jenni found herself fostering more and more. In 2014, The Foster Kitten Project was born on Facebook where she could share her happy, and sometimes heart wrenching, stories.

In 2017, Jenni found herself desperately trying to reunite a neonatal foster kitten with the rest of his siblings before they were picked up and euthanized for being too small, expensive, and time-consuming to care for.

This was when the true purpose of The Foster Kitten Project was born. Jenni wanted to focus on orphaned and abandoned neonatal kittens. In 2018 she earned the not-for-profit 501(c)3 status, and The Foster Kitten Project has been saving neonatal kittens ever since.

The Foster Kitten Project (FKP) specializes in neonatal kittens, which are defined as newborns up until four weeks of age and rely on others, generally their mother, for 100% protection, warmth, and nutrition. Many shelters are unable to take on this group of kittens due to their intensive round the clock care, and as a result, they are one of the largest groups euthanized in the United States. Because of their fragile state, neonates also have a high mortality rate. Still, FKP tries to give them their best chance at life by bottle feeding, keeping them warm, providing medical care, and matching them with their purr-fect furever family when they have matured and are healthy enough.