WHITE HEATH - Finally, they have a home.

Well, more specifically, they have a shelter on Pontious Farm to house them until they are adopted into homes.

The nearly 50 cats and kittens being fostered by the newly formed Piatt County Animal Shelter are being housed in a temporary facility on the farm. Members of the animal group - they have 80 on their mailing list so far - are raising funds to build a permanent home on the two acres that Richard and Nancee Pontious have donated for construction.

"We're hoping with the addition of an animal shelter, we can help the adoption process," Richard Pontious said. "We've got the extra area to make it work."

The temporary shelter has been placed on the former site of the farm's honey house, Nancee Pontious said.

The Piatt County Animal Shelter group was established to care for small, domestic animals abandoned in the county towns of Cerro Gordo, Cisco, DeLand, Hammond, Lodge, Mansfield and White Heath. They do not plan to encroach on existing animal control contracts in Monticello, said Kim Spark, who co-founded the group with Diana McPheeters.

"(McPheeters) called and said, 'We're doing it; I started the process,' " Spark said.

That was November, and they began raising funds in December.

When they were looking for a permanent site, McPheeters said they visited Pontious Farm but left without committing to move there.

"I burst into tears. I wanted the shelter so badly," said Nancee Pontious when she thought the farm had lost the facility. "We gave them the space first, and then I became a volunteer."

McPheeters said the animals now will be all under one roof.

"We would like to have $150,000," said McPheeters, shelter board president, of their fundraising goal.

That would give the group funding to have a permanent structure built, plus have the first year's running expenses, she added.

Shelter volunteers will be at the farm every Saturday through Aug. 30 to show animals for potential adoption. McPheeters said cats or kittens available for adoption will have been either spayed or neutered and have feline leukemia vaccinations, as well as have been tested for feline immunodeficiency virus.

Long term, the Piatt County group lists as one of its goals the establishment of a full-service humane society with the capability to care for large and small animals.

Arlene Mannlein can be reached at amannlein@herald-review.com or 421-6976.