Cool Cat Collective Cat Themed Gallery – Buy Cool Stuff, Help Cool Cats!
This week Michelle Fern chats cats with Jena Winberry Carr, who along with her husband Matt created the Cool Cat Collective Cat Themed Gallery. Their concept is a totally original one: a hybrid of the "cat cafe" model with a boutique gallery, but it's totally free to visit with the cats and no appointment is needed. The idea is to get more casual visitors in to meet the cats to highly socialize them and get them seen by more potential adopters. Also joining them is Vita Manzoli, co-founder of TippedEars, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization whose purpose is to combat cat overpopulation through humane TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return).
Listen to Episode #252 Now:
BIO:
Jena Winberry Carr is the co-founder of Cool Cat Collective, a boutique & art gallery for cat people. Her work background is an eclectic mix of nonprofit and small business spanning fields from the arts to food & beverage. Jena has fostered 39 cats to date and only adopted 2 of them. She lives in Long Beach with her partner, child, dog, and never enough cats.
Vita Manzoli grew up in Italy, where the cat overpopulation issue is no better than in the US. While visiting her grandparents in Tuscany, she would always feed and befriend all the outdoor cats, and even talked her Grandma into adopting a few of them. Upon moving to Southern California in 2018, Vita started getting involved with the rescue world by becoming a volunteer at a local kitten nursery. She has since fostered cats and kittens of all ages, including bottle babies, friendly and unsocialized mamas, teenagers and medical fosters. She has been a foster mentor for other foster parents, as well as a member of adoption and TNR teams at a local rescue. The more exposure to the rescue world she got, the clearer it became to her that the problem needs to be addressed at its roots. By improving the lives of community cats, Vita feels she will really be contributing to stopping the never-ending cycle of suffering.
Vita has a background in science and has been working in the research world for over 15 years. Her will to continuously learn and find methodical solutions to problems is her driving force through any challenge she faces in life.
Vita is a proud mom of 4 cats, including a special needs boy, Sebastian, she nurtured back to health after he suffered a severe nerve injury as a baby.