Caring for Cats in Ukraine: Updates, fundraiser and our heroes
Hi, Dasha here.
The end of kitten season is ending, and we have a few updates to share and lots of people to thank.
First and foremost — the cats are doing well, thanks to the work put in by the sisters who care for them day and night.
To keep them fed and healthy and find new loving homes, we are raising funds to cover ongoing costs. To make it more transparent and easy to keep track of, we set up a board that features everything the shelter needs to operate. We ensure we get the best and the cheapest, preferably directly from the official distributors.
The bi-lingual cat shelter needs board is finally here.
We urgently need anti-parasite medication (topical and pills), shelter detergent that works best against feline parvovirus and paying an outstanding vet bill for a lovely cat called Chudo. We also need to replenish our reserve funds, as we have had MANY vet emergencies this year.
🎯How to help 120+ kitties in our care
Go to our new and much prettier Donation page and pick any option that works for you. And if anything is unclear or doesn’t work, let us know: [email protected].
Here is Chudo last year when we were starting to help the shelter. She was initially adopted but then returned.
We have also covered expenses for Earl Grey — although he is old and beaten by the life of a stray cat, we simply couldn’t watch him die in front of us. When Konstanina or Lena ask me if we have funds to save this cat, I simply can’t say no — firstly, because I hate seeing cats suffer when denied medical care and secondly, because it is so tough for a cat lover not to be able to help the ones we love.
One day, Earl Grey appeared on the monastery grounds, and I managed to take a picture of him. He would get really sick sometime later.
Other fun or important things we have been up to:
We have received great help translating our website from a few community volunteers (thank you, guys, 💛💙), who are among our dedicated supporters and have a good command of English and Ukrainian.
We were also able to purchase the food for the cats thanks to a fundraiser led by Lena, our community’s telegram administrator and a great cat welfare promoter (her efforts deserve a separate post!). Her initiative helped us ensure the shelter's cats will be provided with proper nutrition for at least some time. Unlike me, she gives regular updates on the cats and our work in her channel for the local community, so make sure to subscribe. We hope to eventually move to 2-language updates (English and Ukrainian) so that the people who care the most will be timely informed on our progress.
After the parvovirus outbreak we overcame (thank you all who helped ❤️), we were still flooded with abandoned kittens and occasionally adult cats. Thankfully, we vaccinated, took care of them and eventually adopted almost every kitten (at the moment of this post) despite our adoption volunteer leaving. One of the key ingredients to a successful adoption is having good pictures of the cats, which we make using a professional camera and a lens donated to us by our friend.
Yuki is one of the kittens that we got adopted this season 😍
I hope to share more and post more as soon as I can 🙏