Animal Welfare Professionals

Who doesn't love kittens?!?!

Please join us for Maddie's Community Conversation on Wednesday, August 19, 2026 at 11am PT/2pm ET  for a conversation with @Marnie Russ, founder of National Kitten College and @Meredith Hippert, Chief Operating Officer at National Kitten College.

Sign up for the webcast here.

There is nothing cuter than a kitten and we want to help them develop into healthy adults.  When shelters, veterinarians, foster programs, rescue organizations, and community partners work together, they create a stronger, more responsive system that saves more kittens than any organization could alone. By contributing data across organizations, we can identify trends, measure what works, recognize emerging challenges, and develop evidence-based solutions that improve kitten care nationwide. Each organization's experiences, successes, and challenges contribute to a growing body of knowledge that advances shelter medicine and helps every community provide better care for its most vulnerable kittens. 

This session is ideal for adoptions and foster staff & volunteers and veterinary professionals (veterinarians, vet techs, support staff) - but all are welcome! 

Don't forget! Maddie's Fund will be awarding up to $10,000 in grants each month! Let us know each time you attend a webcast or watch it on demand during the month by completing the monthly grant awards entry form.

About our speakers:

Marnie Russ is the founder and visionary behind National Kitten College, a groundbreaking program dedicated to advancing the care and survival of neonatal kittens across the United States. With decades of experience in animal welfare, Marnie has become one of the nation’s leading experts in neonatal kitten care, working tirelessly to educate shelter staff, rescue organizations, and fosters on best practices for saving the most vulnerable feline lives.

Under her leadership, National Kitten College has grown into a nationally recognized training model, offering comprehensive education, hands-on mentorship, and strategic support to animal welfare professionals and volunteers. Marnie’s work has directly contributed to a significant increase in neonatal kitten survival rates and has reshaped how shelters approach infant kitten care.

Passionate, compassionate, and driven by data and impact, Marnie continues to lead transformative change in the animal rescue community—ensuring that even the tiniest lives are given a fighting chance.

Meredith Hippert currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer for Kitten College. For over a decade, she has led operations for large-scale veterinary and TNR programs across the U.S. and internationally. Her extensive background includes overseeing shelter operations, managing veterinary services at a high-intake municipal shelter, and training veterinary teams in high-volume techniques. In addition to coordinating wide-reaching TNR and preventative care campaigns, Meredith provides expert consulting to help shelters strategically scale their lifesaving programs.

#AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms
#CommunityPartnerships*
#Conferences,WorkshopsandWebcasts
#EducationandTraining
#FosterPrograms

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Alison Gibson
Media Projects Manager
Maddie’s Fund
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