Back in 2002, Kathy Taggares, owner and president of K.T.’s Kitchens , was sitting in the office of her frozen pizza manufacturing facility in Los Angeles County when something outside the window caught her eye.

“I looked out the window into the parking lot and I saw this tiny little kitten, probably five weeks old, all by itself,” she recalled. “It had obviously been dumped off there or been abandoned by its mother.”

She immediately headed to the parking lot to try to get a closer look at the grey tabby and realized there was something “horribly wrong” with one of the kitten’s eyes.

“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got to trap this kitty and get it to the vet and get some medical help,’” she said. “And I couldn’t catch the kitty. So I enlisted all of my employees — and I have hundreds of employees — that whoever could trap this kitty would get an award and a reward.”

Fortunately, one of her employees was able to catch the little stray, who turned out to be a female kitten. Taggares fell “madly in love” with the kitten and decided to name her Princess Millie.

“Millie stands for ‘milagro,’ which is ‘miracle’ in Spanish,” she said. “Since the employee who caught Princess Millie was Hispanic, and we were all saying, ‘It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle. It’s a milagro. It’s a milagro,’ that he caught her, and then we shortened it to ‘Millie.’ So that’s the derivation of her name.”

Taggares rushed Princess Millie to a veterinarian, who needed to surgically remove one of her eyes. Taggares adopted the former stray, who became a beloved pet for the rest of her life.

“She was a very spoiled little kitty sitting on my desk for 12 years — and tons of love,” Taggares said. “So it was my journey with Princess Millie — catching her as a feral little abandoned baby, going through the surgeries, having her as my daily companion — that made me realize that really this is where my heart is: in animal welfare.”

Princess Millie’s impactful life has improved the lives of countless other animals. Since 2012, Taggares has donated over $4.8 million to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ( ASPCA ).

“I realized I wanted to do something major in the animal welfare world and something of significance. So I started looking around for an organization I could align myself with, who would be able to help me with my dreams and goals,” she said. “After a lot of research, actually, I honed in on the ASPCA and realized they had the size and the expertise to really take on big projects.”

The first big project was providing free mobile spay/neuter clinics for dogs and cats in underserved communities in Los Angeles.

“I am a big advocate of spay and neutering,” she said. “I feel it’s probably the single most important thing we can be doing out there to stop animal suffering by preventing unwanted animals from being born in the first place.”

After she helped the ASPCA launch two mobile spay/neuter clinics in LA and was impressed by how many animals were benefiting, she started pondering the impact that adding a brick-and-mortar veterinary clinic could have.

So she donated $2.5 million for the creation of The ASPCA Community Veterinary Clinic by Kathy Taggares in Carson, California — which is a mile from her food processing plant. The clinic, which held a grand opening on July 29, offers free and affordable basic and preventive care to dogs and cats including vaccinations, treatment for minor illnesses and injuries, humane euthanasia services and, of course, free spay/neuter surgeries.

Taggares was so moved thinking about how many people in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County will now have access to veterinary care for their pets that she broke into tears at the grand opening ceremony.

“I cried through half my speech,” she said. “It was very emotional because I know the impact it’s going to have on this community.”

She hopes other animal lovers across the country will donate money or volunteer for animal shelters and rescue organizations.

“There’s just a huge need, but there are a lot of ways to get involved,” she said. “Overall, we’re making progress, but there’s still a long way to go.”