Kerry Bartoletti (above) and Lori Ratchelous were drawn together by a shared concern for feral cats. LORI RATCHELOUS

How they met: Kerry Bartoletti was six when she rescued her first kitten. Years later, she volunteered at the Essie Dabrusin Cat Sanctuary in Beacon, N.Y. Lori Ratchelous was a longtime cat lover who worked for Forgotten Felines, a cat shelter in Clinton, Conn.

Fate brought the pair together in a parking lot in 2006. Since moving to Cheshire, Conn., in 1997, Bartoletti had been working on trap-neuter-return (TNR) projects that included a colony of cats on a restaurant property, while Ratchelous had trapped many cats at the hospital where she worked, finding homes for the friendly strays.

 Read the full article.