Animal League Helps Out in the Rescue of Harlem's Strays

It's a case of the large helping the small.

The North Shore Animal League on New York's Long Island, the world's largest animal-rescue mission, has donated $15,000 to the one-woman animal-rescue crusade of Chitra Besbroda, after learning about her Harlem-based Sentient Creatures Inc. in the Jan. 13 edition of The Christian Science Monitor.

Known in New York as "the Mother Teresa of Animals" - a name given to her by Roger Caras, president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - Ms. Besbroda has chalked up 25 years of saving animals from the junkyards and fighting pits of Harlem.

In presenting her with the check last week, the North Shore Animal League's Perry Fina paid tribute to Besbroda's accomplishments and perseverance.

"It is not often a truly saintly person is among us," he said. "But many call her a living saint because she gives all that she has to help the most innocent - homeless dogs and cats ... all at great risk to herself and almost entirely with her own money."

"This gift could not have come at a better time. I'm so grateful," says Besbroda.

"I have just rented a small storefront as a shelter, and we have been struggling to renovate it," she adds. "Now I can pay for a full year's rent and have money left over to fix the place up and buy a new water heater."