Her story

The calm at the heart of our happy chaos.

Chrisa is our early bird, our stickler for rules, neatness and organisation — and, honestly, every cat shelter should have a Chrisa. We are incredibly lucky that we do.

It is not always easy for her in our hectic, chaotic cat life, especially because I am pretty much her complete opposite. I mix up dry-erase markers with permanent ones, leave completely unintelligible scribbles on the medication board, drop the medication box she has just organised perfectly, and generally create the kind of chaos that makes Chrisa’s organisational soul hurt. She has a very strong belief that things should be where they are supposed to be! And yet… she keeps coming back.

For many years now, Chrisa has been one of our most loyal team members — often the only proper Greek in our very international Kittygarten team. But her greatest talent has nothing to do with organisation. Chrisa is a cat whisperer.

She has an incredible ability to connect with the cats who don’t trust people. The frightened ones, the suspicious ones, the difficult ones who have decided that humans are definitely not their favourite species. And somehow, they choose her. Cats who hide from everyone else will come out for Chrisa. Cats who don’t want to be touched slowly learn to trust her. Some of the most challenging little characters have eventually turned into absolute love bugs, because she simply gave them the patience and kindness they needed. That is a very special kind of gift.

Her other amazing talent is photography and video. Many of the beautiful photos and sweet videos you see from our Kittygarten on Instagram and in our stories are Chrisa’s work. She has a wonderful eye for capturing the small moments that show what our cats are really like — the funny ones, the sweet ones, the ridiculous ones and the incredibly touching ones.

So while the rest of us are running around creating chaos, Chrisa is quietly keeping us all in check. She makes sure the medication is organised, the Kittygarten doesn’t fall into complete disarray, the cats who need a little extra patience get it, and that some of our everyday shelter moments are captured and shared with the world. She is the calm, organised counterbalance to our madness.

And, Chrisa, I promise I will try to stop putting permanent marker where the dry-erase one should be. 😅 We really wouldn’t be the same team without you.