Simone, 21 years old, VA | 5 DAYS WAITING

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The first thing Simone did when she got the keys to her very own apartment was stand in the doorway and cry. It was quiet and small and entirely hers, and after years of never knowing where she would sleep next, she wanted to remember the moment forever. Simone entered foster care as a child and moved through more homes than she can count. Some were kind and some were not, and in all of them she lived with the feeling that her place could be taken away at any time. When she turned 21, she stepped into adulthood without a family to fall back on, but with a stubborn kind of strength. She works at a daycare, where she has a gift for comforting the child having the hardest day because she remembers what that felt like. Simone is saving and studying to become an early childhood teacher so she can be the steady, welcoming grown-up she needed when she was little. She takes enormous pride in her apartment and keeps it tidy and warm. She shares it with her beloved cat, who greets her at the door after every long day and has taught her that a home feels most like home when someone is waiting for you inside it.

When Simone brought her cat home, it was the first time she had ever been able to say, “You’re safe here, and you’re staying.” Her cat greets her at the door after long days at the daycare, and that welcome means the world to a young woman who spent years wondering where she belonged. A self-cleaning litter box would make caring for her cat easier and keep her apartment fresh while she works and studies to become a teacher. It would give her more time to curl up with her cat and one of her favorite picture books, and the peace of knowing she is giving her pet the same steady, loving home she is building for herself. For a young woman who has made a family out of the one who waits for her at the door, it would mean more quiet moments in the home she has worked so hard to create.