Socially Anxious Chinese Woman Turns Wedding Leftovers Into Lifeline For 120 Stray Cats

A woman from southwestern China has touched many people online with her unique way of facing social anxiety and helping animals. Over the past three years, she has attended around 100 wedding banquets of strangers to collect untouched leftover food, which she uses to feed more than 120 stray cats. Her story has now gone viral on social media, reported South China Morning Post.

Xuanxuan is a resident of Baoshan City, Yunnan Province, China. She previously worked as a part-time video editor and struggled with social anxiety. In the winter of 2022, when she saw stray cats shivering in the cold outside, she decided to rescue them. Gradually, more cats came into her care, and over time, her home became home to over 120 cats.

According to Xuanxuan, feeding a small cat costs about 3 yuan a day, which sometimes pushed her daily expenses to over 300 yuan. Her thinking changed when she attended a wedding and saw large quantities of untouched food being thrown away. That's when she realised that she could help cats while preventing food waste.

This experience inspired her to start the "Leftover Rescue Plan". Under this initiative, she collects clean food leftover from weddings and feeds it to stray animals. Initially, due to social anxiety, it was very difficult for her to talk to strangers and ask for leftover food.

Later, she explained that it took a lot of courage to even speak, but the thought of the cats waiting for her at home gave her the courage to approach people.

For the past three years, she has attended a wedding banquet almost every ten days. On the busiest days, she brought home up to 30 kilograms of clean leftover food, including chicken, sea bass, and shrimp. Upon reaching home, she steams the food again to reduce the oil and salt, and then feeds it to the animals. This method has allowed her to save around 1,000 to 2,000 yuan per month and reduce food waste.