Donors’ best intentions notwithstanding, one never knows what they might encounter at one of the village’s several Little Free Pantries. Expired garbanzo beans and brown bananas are regrettably just as common as the shelf-stable necessities.

A bucket of kittens? Now that’s a rarity, even in Yellow Springs.

On Tuesday afternoon, May 12, villager Kyle Truitt and his pit-mix, Maeve, went out for a casual trot around the block. A personal trainer by trade, Truitt relishes his mid-day walks with his canine companion. 

The pair went their regular route down Dayton Street, alongside the community gardens at Bill Duncan Park. Per usual, Maeve wanted to stop and sniff the latest news at the base of the Little Free Pantry. Truitt saw a black bucket there, thought nothing of it — maybe potatoes? He was busy drinking in the springtime air. Maeve knew better and wouldn’t let up her investigation.

“She started doing that head cocking thing that dogs do when they come across something real peculiar,” Truitt said. “I knew the vibes were off.”

He looked in and saw five three-week-old kittens curled up in the bottom of the bucket. Two orange, three classic tabbies. Their eyes were closed and they all lay motionless, head over tail.

“It was a little scary at first,” Truitt said. “I wasn’t sure they were even alive, but I saw them squirm around a tiny bit. They were so young and helpless. I just couldn’t believe it.”

So, Truitt did what any sensible Yellow Springs resident would do in a moment of panic — he turned to social media and raised alarms in every local community group he could think of.

Not being a “cat guy,” as he put it, coupled with his sometimes overeager pups, adoption was out of the question for Truitt.

That was no matter for longtime local Erin Hankie. She was among the many, many indignant dozens on social media who aired their disbelief that anyone could leave such vulnerable creatures under the sun without even a note — but Hankie was the first on the scene to snag the bucket and all five of its feline contents.

“I saw the post and immediately left work to grab them,” Hankie said. “I love animals, cats particularly. They didn’t ask to be born! If you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”

Though the work of taking care of baby critters is not at all foreign to Hankie, the minute-to-minute logistics that followed Hankie’s ad hoc adoption were no walk in the park.

She put it plainly: “It’s a challenge to teach very young animals to drink from a bottle, to poop and pee.”

But things are looking up for Hankie and the cats. Relying on the same online threads Truitt started, and by word of mouth, Hankie has managed to find suitable homes for three of the kittens — and she’s taken great pains to find better spots for them than a bucket on Dayton Street.

“I kind of stalk people on social media to see if I think they are responsible pet owners who won’t end up rehoming,” she admitted. “I give kittens and cats to people I know and trust — I’ve been caring for and rehoming strays for years.”

As of press time, Hankie’s still looking for homes for two of the kittens.

Should anyone else happen across a bucket of baby animals, Julie Holmes-Taylor, the director of Greene County Animal Control, said to give her a call right away at  937-562-7400.

“Really, start with calling us if you don’t know what to do, if you can’t take care of those animals, — we’ll accept them. At the end of the day, we’re here to offer that resource and to give you options,” Holmes-Taylor told the News via phone earlier this week.

She continued: “We try not to take kittens under a certain age — about three weeks old — especially if they don’t have their mother and are unweaned. Nine times out of 10, we’ll hold those kittens for three days and have to euthanize them. We try not to, but it’s almost always the most humane thing to do if no one wants them.”

Holmes-Taylor noted that Greene County Animal Control is well-connected to other area animal welfare organizations, including the Dayton-based SICSA, or the Society for the Improvement of Conditions for Stay Animals; the Dayton Humane Society; individual volunteer fosters; and other private organizations such as Tenth Life, Gem City Kitties and Blue’s Mews.

By first contacting Greene County Animal Control in the event of an unexpected stray animal situation, they can link people up to the proper resource.

Given that it’s currently “kitten season,” as Holmes-Taylor put it, referring to the pleasant weather that stirs up romance among strays, Animal Control and all other rescues and shelters are becoming increasingly inundated with cats.

“We’re very space-driven here,” she said. “If we get overrun with stray cats, then we have to make decisions about what gets held and what doesn’t. Euthanizing is never our first option — anything we can do to avoid it — but we just don’t have the staffing to feed them, no one to take care of them overnight. But after that three-day period, if they’re the right age, have a good temperament, positive results on their behavioral and medical assessments, we’ll fix them and put them up for adoption.”

To learn more about the services offered by Greene County Animal Control, its hours and contact information, go to http://www.greenecountyohio.gov/112/Animal-Control