A Shelter Volunteer Honors Her 50th Foster Cat with a Portrait

Sarah has fostered 50 cats over the past seven years.

Kittens too small to eat on their own. Senior cats with nowhere to go. A one-eyed tabby who hissed at everyone for two weeks before deciding Sarah was, in fact, acceptable.

That tabby — Biscuit — was her very first foster. And when Sarah hit her 50th, she knew exactly how she wanted to mark the milestone.

"I Wanted Something That Would Last"

"Fostering is bittersweet," Sarah told us. "You fall in love with every single one, and then you let them go to their forever home. That's the whole point. But sometimes you want something to hold onto."

She sent us a photo of Biscuit from his first night in her apartment — one eye, scraggly fur, sitting in a cardboard carrier looking deeply unimpressed with the situation.

"He was a disaster," she laughed. "And I loved him immediately."

The Portrait

Sarah chose our Premium Acrylic style. She wanted the warmth of a painting, not the sharpness of a print. "I wanted it to feel like a memory," she said. "Not a document."

Our artist worked from the single photo, capturing Biscuit's asymmetrical face with care — the missing eye rendered not as an absence, but as a closed, peaceful expression that gave him a look of quiet contentment.

"When I saw the preview, I cried," Sarah said. "He looked exactly like himself. Exactly like I remembered him."

For Every Foster Parent

Biscuit was adopted eight years ago. Sarah doesn't know where he is now — that's the nature of fostering. But his portrait hangs in her hallway, next to the door she's opened for 49 other cats since.

"Every time I bring a new foster home, I walk past him," she says. "It reminds me why I do this."

If you're a foster parent, a shelter volunteer, or simply someone who has loved an animal that wasn't yours to keep — a custom portrait is a way to honor that love permanently.

Browse our portrait styles and create something that lasts.