After marking a decade in the Ozarks, Eden Animal Haven aims to upgrade feline shelter

Rachel Kersey
·6 min read
Leslie Sawyer and Bill Stoll, founders of Eden Animal Haven, pose for a photo with Eirik, a cat who is one of the longest residents at the shelter.
Leslie Sawyer and Bill Stoll, founders of Eden Animal Haven, pose for a photo with Eirik, a cat who is one of the longest residents at the shelter.

Nestled deep in the hills of Brighton, back where the horses graze and the properties are cordoned off by the treeline, sits Eden Animal Haven, a shelter for cats in need. Founded by former social worker Leslie Sawyer and her husband, Bill Stoll, Eden celebrated its 10th anniversary in December and is entering a new decade with new dreams for the future.

In honor of the occasion, the shelter has unveiled a new logo, giving the original cat a “facelift.” Now, the cat is red, and the words “Eden Animal Haven Est. 2013” encircle the kitty.

“We have been blessed,” recalls Sawyer, the shelter’s director. “Bill and I have done this almost entirely on a volunteer basis. I worked full-time as a therapist to pay our bills and Bill took an early retirement so he could be here. It wasn’t until four years ago (that) we were able to hire our first employee and since then, we now have two full-time employees and three part-time employees.”

Leslie Sawyer, director of Eden Animal Haven, stands with a shirt bearing the shelter’s new logo. The shirts are on sale for $25 in short sleeves and $30 in three-quarter-length sleeves.
Leslie Sawyer, director of Eden Animal Haven, stands with a shirt bearing the shelter’s new logo. The shirts are on sale for $25 in short sleeves and $30 in three-quarter-length sleeves.

The shelter runs with the help of about 30 volunteers who come on a regular basis.

Eden Animal Haven was founded in 2013, but Sawyer and Stoll were rescuing cats as early as 2010. The property on which the shelter sits originally had an old A-frame house and a barn, and Sawyer and her husband kept the cats in the horse stalls, which they enclosed in chicken wire.

“It was very grassroots. It’s just amazing looking back,” Sawyer said. “There were no utilities down there. We had to lug water from the house, and we had headlamps on and there was no climate control and so we did that for seven years — rescuing cats and rehoming them using the barn as our shelter.”

In 2017, they took $20,000 from their own savings and began telling people about the next phase they were hoping to move into — a cage-free facility inspired by Best Friend’s Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah, where Sawyer had volunteered for many summers. The couple asked for donations to help erect a building complete with six “kitty condos,” six, large community rooms for older cats (all of which have comfortable beds, nice places to perch, scratching posts, food, water, and litter boxes), and several catios — screened in porches located on both sides of the building where the cats can sit outside and be near to nature.

“It took us three years,” she said. “We don’t have any loans and it was [through] the support of our people who believed in what we were doing that this building is even here.”

Gambit, a shy cat that is a year-and-a-half old, sits out on the catio. All of his siblings have been adopted.
Gambit, a shy cat that is a year-and-a-half old, sits out on the catio. All of his siblings have been adopted.

Thus the cats finished up the first decade in a warm, safe home. Now, the rescue is asking for community support again to do new, big things. More than updating its logo, Eden is looking at making some major upgrades both inside and outside of the shelter — and all as soon as this summer, if they can raise enough support.

Inside the shelter, they would like to add enrichment items such as shelves and apparatuses that can be built into the walls and ceilings of the cat’s rooms. They are also hoping to turn one of the back quarantine rooms into a simple clinic so that whenever a veterinarian comes into the shelter, there is a dedicated space with a small operating table and some medical supplies.

Outdoors, the shelter is planning to build a proper parking lot. Right now, visitors park on a rocky incline in front, but the gravel is slated to be leveled and there will be dedicated handicapped parking as well.

Eden Animal Haven’s parking lot is a gravel incline. Its operators hope to level the lot, add handicap parking and create a meditation garden in front.
Eden Animal Haven’s parking lot is a gravel incline. Its operators hope to level the lot, add handicap parking and create a meditation garden in front.

Possibly the biggest renovation, however, is the planned addition of a meditation garden overlooking the spring-fed pond and the nature trails.

“I think next is to work on this being more of a sanctuary for people as well as for animals,” Sawyer said. “It’s a peaceful place for people to come as well and visit with the cats. A lot of our volunteers say they come here because it’s therapeutic, (and) I totally agree. Some of them do struggle with some mental health (issues) or some loss and grief issues and they come here to heal and it’s just amazing.”

They wouldn’t be the first to have that kind of experience. In fact, the entire journey to starting the shelter began in 2006, when Sawyer herself visited the cozy Eden Bed-and-Breakfast in Brighton to heal from a difficult situation in her personal life.

Tavia gets cozy in one of the bedrooms at Eden Animal Haven.
Tavia gets cozy in one of the bedrooms at Eden Animal Haven.

One day, she took a walk through the forest and found an owl tangled in barbed wire.

“I managed to disentangle the owl from the barbed wire with my bare hands and the owl trusted in me to do that and never attacked me or anything,” Sawyer remembered. “I was going through a very painful experience and when I freed the owl and I watched it soar over the treetops, it was very symbolic of me and what I’d had to do in my life, and it was a very emotional thing. It totally changed my life.”

Sawyer came back to the Ozarks with Stoll the next year and they tried to locate the spot where she had rescued the owl. They never found it — the area had been destroyed by the historic 2007 ice storm. But the experience was a very powerful catalyst for what was to come. During her time in the Ozarks, she had befriended a couple who shared her passion for helping animals and people and that was when the idea for Eden Animal Haven was born.

The couple, Dr. I. Neal Cohen and his wife, Jackie, donated the land where the shelter sits today.

Topaz, a feral cat, lives with other feral cats in the barn.
Topaz, a feral cat, lives with other feral cats in the barn.

As the light faded one Sunday evening in January, the Cohens sat inside their home, faces brightened by lamplight, reflecting warmly on all that Sawyer has done for the shelter with the help of her team.

“Out of our appreciation for the wisdom, knowledge, integrity and sensitivity of Leslie, we wanted her to have the land,” Dr. Cohen said. “And she has far exceeded our dreams. She really has.”

For anyone who wants to participate in the next decade of this dream, the shelter is selling some of the bricks that will be custom engraved and built into the ground of the meditation garden. They are also hosting a fundraiser in the spring and have already begun advertising for it. Rock The Cat’s Paw, the fundraiser, will be held from 4-9 p.m. Sunday, April 7, at Elk’s Lodge in Springfield. There will be live music from three bands, games, a silent auction and food trucks.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Cat shelter in Brighton celebrates 10-year anniversary, plans to grow