"In 2021 we had to pay another yearly rent, but we only were able to fundraise for half of what we needed. We paid half our rent (6 months) and made a deal with our landlord to pay the rest in November. However the landlord decided they want to renovate the place and asked us to move out instead of extending our lease."
About The Odd Cat.
The Odd Cat is the first rescue cat café in Bali, working alongside Villa Kitty, the only cat shelter on the island. The cafe first opened its door on the 18th of November, 2016. The idea was to have a safe, homey environment for the rescued cats until they are adopted. People can come in for a drink and some nibbles and enjoy the feline company. Through the cafe, we create an experience on what life with cats looks like, and hope to rehome as many cats as possible.
The Goals of the café
The main goal of the café is to find homes for as many cats as possible. Each adoption allows us to foster more cats and kittens, from the shelter or directly from foster homes. The café is closer to a home environment than the shelter is; therefore, it is easier to see the cats’ personalities before being adopted. People can come in and spend as much time as they want with the cats to get to know them and fall in love. Of course, before allowing cats to be adopted, we interview potential adopters to make sure our cats go to the best-suited homes.
We also use the café as a source of education. It is a place where we offer an experience for people to learn about cats. Teaching them about proper cat nutrition, why to vaccinate and sterilize, why are cats amazing pets, why adopting is better than buying. We also give people the information they need such as where to go or who to contact if they cannot afford veterinary care, and how to bring their cats back to their own countries if they decide to leave Bali. We teach people about fostering and provide what is needed when they decide to foster for us. And so on.
Why are we important?
There is a huge problem with stray cats in Bali, and a lack of education about animal care. We work alongside Villa Kitty, the only cat shelter of Bali. They do a great job caring for the homeless cats and kittens, but with limited resources compared to the number of cats in need, it is often overwhelming. Through the cafe, we do our best to help, by having cats for adoption in a different area of Bali. To ensure the cats’ health and wellbeing, we keep a limited number of cats living in the café, which also makes it less overwhelming when people are looking to adopt. But it still gives potential adopters enough cats and kittens to choose from to meet their purrfect feline match.
Over time we also started doing our own rescuing. We now have a small network of foster homes for new rescues, who home kittens until they are fully vaccinated. We have taught people how to bottle-feed neonatal kittens, so more people can help us help the babies. As I am writing this, I am comparing the notes I took when writing the fundraiser to move to a new location three years ago. At the time, we had taken in 156 cats and kittens, and 80 of them had been rehomed. Today, we have rescued over 500 cats and kittens, and have found homes for more than 350 of them. Those numbers are the reason we need to keep going.
Before the pandemic, we created a small community where we educate people about the importance of vaccinating and sterilizing their animals, and we offer to help those who can’t afford to do so. We organized sterilization days with Bali Pet Crusaders, where people could bring their animals for sterilization at a reduced price, or even free or by donation if they really cannot afford to pay the full amount. Working together with other rescuers and people in the cat lover community is the way to help and save more cats and kittens in the long run.
Why are we fundraising?
Three years ago, we set up a fundraiser to move to a new location. Our goal was to make it better for the cats and for the people visiting, and to become financially independent. We also had the goal to use donations to help the community around us rather than just paying our vet bills and for cat food. And we did that! 2019 was the best year the café had since we opened, and things were only getting better until Covid-19 hit. The whole world was affected by the pandemic; I don’t need to explain it. We had saved enough to pay for our yearly rent and to survive for a few months, but we weren’t in a position to completely close our doors for almost a year. And unlike other businesses, we still had to care for the cats throughout the lockdown; we had to pay our employees, our vet bills, food, and care for new rescues. Luckily we had a lot of adoptions so the outcome for cats was good and we were able to keep the numbers down compared to normal times. We were also so lucky and grateful that some people stepped up and financially helped us to pay for our employees’ salaries for months. We couldn’t have survived this long without these donors’ support. We were able to reopen our doors five days per week in January, 2021, but with the borders still closed, we just had enough funds to pay for our monthly expenses.
In 2021 we had to pay another yearly rent, but we only were able to fundraise for half of what we needed. We paid half our rent (6 months) and made a deal with our landlord to pay the rest in November. However the landlord decided they want to renovate the place and asked us to move out instead of extending our lease.
We found the purrfect place to move our cats, and although the yearly rent is very cheap, we needed to make some adjustments to shelter our cats. We're halfway through the renovations and we've run out of funds. We need approximately IDR 30,000,000 to completely finish building our dream sanctuary. The new place has a beautiful space with a garden that our cats and visitors will love.
If you have any spare to give for this jolly Christmas season, we will be forever grateful. If we can finish in time, we could start the new year in our new Odd Cat Bali Sanctuary.
We thank you in advance for your generous contribution ,as well as those you have made in the past. We know we cannot continue rescuing kittens and cats and educating the community about these incredible companions without your help!
