Entrant's Name
Lee Schwartz & Gayle Griffith

Adoption Date
September 2011

Your Pet's Story or Bio
Alice & her four kittens came to the Book Center in September 2011. They were the beginning of a new adoption outreach program that partnered the Book Center with the Allegany County Animal Shelter. Alice was a very young mother, probably under 9 months of age herself. She was pretty scrawny looking but had produced beautiful kittens, each of whom was adopted very quickly. Alice was adopted by a couple shortly after but was brought back to the store within 18 hours because she did not get along with the couple’s other cat. She looked so pathetic in the cage all by herself that we started letting her out to roam the store during the day. A week or so went by with no adoption offers. What we were getting was regular customers coming and asking how she was, where she was, etc. We realized that it would be possible to have a bookstore kitty, and we adopted her. That was the start of Alice’s career as the Book Center Mascot. She filled out, and became the beauty she is today. She has become a Downtown Cumberland celebrity…people come to the store to visit her, children ask for her, and she even has out-of-towners who pass through the area regularly stopping to visit her. She’s appeared in our ads, on our website and Facebook pages and even got her photo taken with Santa Claus this year! Often sleeping in the front windows among the stuffed animals, she surprises window shoppers when she suddenly stretches or opens her eyes. Another favorite spot is just inside the front door, but she never tries to go outside…it’s as though she is just watching the world go by her little world.

We can’t imagine the Book Center without Alice, and hope that you vote for her in this contest.