PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Morris Animal Refuge in Center City is celebrating a milestone anniversary and remembering the woman who made it all possible 150 years ago.
Elizabeth Morris was known as a visionary. She started the Morris Refuge Association for Homeless and Suffering Animals in 1874 — one of the first animal shelters in America. It was established about 10 years before Penn opened its veterinary school. By 1888, the refuge had its own ambulance for cats and dogs — a wagon pulled by a horse.
The name has since been shortened but her legacy lives on at the same 12th and Lombard streets facility that she started in.
“She loved cats. They used to call her the cat lady,” said Lewis Checchia, executive director of Morris Animal Refuge. “She would go out and care for animals in the streets. She would bring them in and care for them and she would do the same for dogs.”
Over the last 150 years, all sorts of animals have been cared for and rehomed by the shelter, and not just cats and dogs, said Checchia. “Parakeets, chinchillas, ferrets. We’ve gotten porcupines. We rescued an alligator. And one time, we provided health care to an elephant that a circus left in the train yard in the early 1900s.”
Today, Morris Animal Refuge has a remarkable 98% save rate. Checchia credits that to grant funding, the generosity of private donations, and an array of pathways programs, like one that secures funding to meet the behavioral, medical and dental needs of animals before they are put up for adoption.
Checchia also credits fundraising efforts with continuing its founder’s mission, like the refuge’s 27th annual Fur Ball. The event takes place Friday, March 8 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
“We are doing better than ever,” Checchia added. “We intake and adopt out anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 animals a year. … Our mission is to care for animals that are lost and abandoned and find them forever homes.”