Speaker 1: This is Pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 2: Hello, cat levers, and welcome to Cautitude. I'm your show
host Michelle Burne. You know here in the US, you know,
we love our cats. I mean they're like are you
know there are babies, are for babies, and you know,
T and R is very important to us, and we
have such a wonderful view of you know, how we
respect cats for the most part. You know where cats
being euthanized has gone way down over the years and
so forth. But it's really interesting when you step back
and take a look at how another country views cats,
because it's not the same. Feline views are not the
same all over the world. We're going to talk to
our guests today who's done some remarkable things, will be
right back.
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Speaker 4: Let's talk pets on Petlife Radio dot com.
Speaker 5: Wecome back, everyone.
Speaker 2: I'd like to introduce Julie Kelly. She is a cat
rescuer by day and a businesswoman by night. She owns
a construction company in New York and also owns a
nonprofit called Let's Be Smart. And I'm so excited to
have you on the show.
Speaker 5: Welcome Julie, thank you, Thank you for having me. Michelle,
I'm so excited.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I didn't go into but Let's be spart
actually stands for something, the smart part, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, successfully managing animal rights today. I love that.
Speaker 2: You know, for my introduction, people are probably thinking, okay,
so it's like your superwoman, you're cat rescuing and then
you're a Brismith woman, you know, right, doesn't that how
one of the superheroes goes you know this by day,
this by night? And so you have this successful business
in New York and you decided to go to Greece
and rescue cats. Yes, how in the world did that happen?
Because because it's a huge change.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well it started with business and I had some
business with Greeks in New York. And you know, once
you're in with the Greeks, it's like my big fat
Greek wedding. So you know, so you have to go
to Greece. So I started going back in nineteen ninety eight.
I think my first place I went was the island
of Rhodes. And I felt very comfortable because I started
learning the language because I was business partners with the
Greek They were always speaking Greek in the office in
New York. So I said, I'm going to learn Greek.
So I know what you're saying. So I took some
classes at NYU Modern Greek, and then I just felt
very comfortable, and I was coming every year, and then
I would come several times a year, and every time
I would come, of course, I would see all the
stray animals and a lot of them, you know, unfortunately,
very sick on the streets. And I just said in
my head one day, I'm going to move to Greece,
since I heave the animals. And I kind of was
on the airplane one time coming from Greece back to
New York and I said, you know, after seeing the
mentality over here, which is a little bit different, which
their strays are kind of a nuisance, or they're not
really able to take care. It's also economic issues, or
they just don't care. You know, there are many that care.
I don't want to say that, but I said, I
need to educate, like I want to give some education.
I want to tell them how great the animals are
and how they can you know, be of help to them,
especially medically. You know, it's therapy and just positive energy
and all that. So I said, I need to come
up with a name, not that you know that we
can be smart, we can stay smart, get smart, be smart,
whatever it is. So then I was on the airplane
trying to figure out what smart would stand for. So
then I came up with successfully managing emalits today. And
I actually started I created like a brochure because I
was I actually study natural medicine just as a hobby
because I like natural kind of natural things and exercise.
So I started speaking and putting together a brochure at
the Greek American University here because I was taking some
classes too, just for the heck of it, some business
classes to see what international was about. And they loved it,
and then they would ask me to come back and
talk to the students. And it was really surprising that
I put together like a whole PowerPoint presentation and I
put about all the benefits for the animals and even
about animals at retirement homes and how nice it is
for the older people and for depression and loneliness, and
it was amazing that they all had no idea. And
these are twenty year old students.
Speaker 2: So obviously this is all in Greece, at the Greek
American University in Greece.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's called the Hellenic American University, Okay, And so
I just got kind of got inspired by that, and
that's more what I was planning to do. But then
you know how it goes the pregnant cat and the neighborhood,
and I see dead kittens all the time, and I said,
I can't let you have your kittens anymore outside, and
so I rented an apartment. It was the cat tory.
Let her have her babies at the VETS office, and
when they were old enough that they came to this
apartment and the shelter kind of started like that was
back in two thousand and eleven. So then, okay, one
by one by one by one, and there was a
lot of cats in there, and I ended up needing
a larger space, which is now the shelter. We're at
the main main shelter out by the Athens Airport, which
is a huge villa. It's about three thousand square feet,
three levels, and now we have over there. We have
over fifty some cats, and I wanted something that would
be very professional, so we have two managers, Ellie and Amber.
That Amber lives there full time. Ellie comes there on
a full time basis, just setting it up also as
a an open environment so that the cats feel like
they're at home. And we do have bedrooms because that
we house volunteers, which I can tell you all about
that later. But and then we have another foster home
which is near where I live, which I live in
a different area of a different part of Athens, more
by the sea, and that grew now and now we
have like twenty something cats there, but a lot of
them are special needs or temporary. So we have about
eighty cats altogether at a given time, and we have
medical books we have you know, it's just it's just
run very professionally scheduled. Like I say, volunteers coming from
all over the world. We have a VET internship program.
Now for our second year, we have our first US
student is with us right now. Actually she's staying at
the shelter, Ashley from Minnesota. So we're excited and she's happy.
And I just tried to create a whole program because
I knew that it's not just feeding a stray cat
on the street, because that's not going to help. You know,
they're still going to be sick, get killed, not have
the right care. You know, yes, you can sterilize them,
which I agree with that as well, and especially for
cats that don't really want to live indoors, because there
are feral cats that don't want to live indoors unless again,
you teach the people to like the animals. They can
put poison here and things. It's illegal, but that doesn't matter.
They poison animals, and you know, they reckless a little
bit the way they drive, so if they see a
cat with a clip, dear, they don't really know. So
the whole important thing is education. So I'm trying to
make a global view of let's be smart. It's not
just one thing, it's many things put together, you know,
in order to have the community be more involved and
like I say, be more educated, target the children for
education and then take care properly of the cats around
our area. And then the girls at the shelter have
strays that they also help manage and sterilize. So and
we started several programs like we created I don't know
if you've seen, but we created our own video series
for animated video series for children, and I created the
Smart Family, so everything they do is smart when they
adopt a cat, and then we teach people how to
take care of their pets in these videos. We have
six right now in our series and we're writing a
special number seven one for the guests that you mentioned before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Julie, what done is amazing. I just I just
want to go back to the beginning and ask you
a question. Why do you think there is such a difference.
You know here in the US and catitude is heard globally,
but mostly in North America. And in North America, you
know US, Canada, even like I know UK, I don't
know France, you know, not all of Europe, but there's
a viewpoint there are fur babies. But then Greece, like
you said that, you know their cats are thought of
this almost like rodents, and you're working like just so
diligently and like you said, very smart, very very smart
to make the change. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think it comes from an older culture
where it was very agricultural as well, so I think
they're used to the animals being outdoors. I mean, there
are a lot of people that love the animals. Now
it's getting better and better, I have to say, and
there's many great women and other organizations start trying. I
don't think anyone really has a shelter like ours, but
there are many, and I collaborate. I like to collaborate,
so I try to share whenever I can help someone else,
and then we share for different resources such as maybe
flights for adoption things like that. But overall, yeah, there's
still a lot of education to be learned. And it
starts with the children because I think a lot of
the parents still have a little bit the old school
mentality and they don't like the hair in the house.
That's one thing, and they say the hair. But actually,
in one of our brochures that we give out because
we've tried to encourage smart yards and put like those
cute outdoor wood homes if they're going to at least
have animals at the condo, because there's a lot of
condo buildings here, you know, it's not so many suburbian
homes like we have in America. It's a lot of
condo buildings. So and then in our brochure we try
to say, why are the cats good for the building?
They can help keep the road and population down, they
can help for the cockroaches, you know, things like that,
and okay, you can keep a smartyard, you can keep
it clean, because that's the other problem. We do have
people that want to try to feed the cats, but
they don't realize that throwing their half eaten food on
the sidewalk is the right thing. I give them credit
for trying, but then the problem is people complain and
they're like it's disgusting or you know, they think right,
ants and bugs, and so they're kind of a lot
of them are halfway there. And I feel that more
and more, like with one mayor, he let us put
twenty smart houses all over this one town, and now
they're organized and people can put food and water in
a an organized cap state feeding station because they just
don't really have so many. There's some here and there,
but not really so organized, and people throw them away,
they destroy them, they throw garbage on them. So unfortunately
it doesn't you know, not in ours, but in other
places that I've tried. But we're trying to show the
community the hey, we can all live together and we
can be clean and neat, and the cats can eat,
you can eat, you know, then we can see if
they're sick, we can take care of them. We can,
you know. That's the other thing too, is economically okay,
some people just can't. The retired people here don't hardly
get any money, so that's probably a problem. Where the
ladies want to feed, they can only afford to feed.
And that's about it.
Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you this, what is tn R
Rescue like there for you guys? I mean, I'm sure
it's a whole different kind of thing than it is
in the US.
Speaker 5: They are doing it. There are some people that are
more active. In fact, again, when we talk about the
other person, we're going to be honoring one female and
male TNR King and Queen here in Greece. One of
them is actually a police officer and so he is
saving the people by day and trapping cats by night.
His name is Alexis. Yeah, he's really nice. And then
there's a lady named Maria, which we're also going to
be doing an event with her when when everybody comes,
and she's pretty active. But there's a you know, some
people in northern Greece. There's a girl and you know,
there's a few that are known and they're trying. But again,
nobody has funds here. That's the other problem. The government
doesn't really even help. Nobody gets help, so everybody's trying
to do what they can on limited resources. This is
the other big, big problem. So they know about it.
It's starting to get more popular. There's also a couple organizations,
like there's one called nine Lines. She doesn't have a shelter,
but she's also British so she knows more about that.
And they do a lot of tn R in downtown
Athens where we do it in my area and out
where my shelter is, which are completely different areas from
downtown Athens. So it's getting there and they're starting to realize.
And the more you educate the public, like in one
of my video series, we talk about how one cat
can end up you know, there could be two thousand
cats from one pregnant mom. So once you show them
these charts and they get a perspective, nobody's taught them
this before. Nobody has really explained this to them. So
it's just they need more awareness. I think about giving
the animals a little bit more important, Like I say,
there are people with pets. There are people walking a
lot of dogs. Even in my area, I see a
lot more dogs than I've lived here sixteen years. So
definitely there's an improvement, but it still needs more education.
And yeah, the younger kids exactly.
Speaker 2: It also sounds like what you're describing, and when you
know mentioned that, you know. The government's entirely different of course,
and limited resources for so many folks. Is being a
pet parent kind of like a bit of a luxury in.
Speaker 5: Greece maybe, I mean it depends if they want. Some
of the people want only breeds, so yes, like sometimes
they feel that the stray is dirty, huh, and then
they want to get the breed. But I think, again,
little by little that's changing. And I saw a couple
of our stores the pet stores stop selling puppies and
cats from their stores. So I don't know if that's
a law. I know in some of the European countries
they've changed that so that you have to go to
like a shelter or a registered breeder. Yes, I know
some of these states have done it. California, I know,
and I think New York not all, but right so
I think, you know, so some do want that, But
like I say, I think little by little, and I
think it's interesting because I think when they see what
we've done with the cats and how we've nursed them,
because some you can't even imagine the way they looked
before we're half dead, and you know, we turn them
into these perfect beautiful kittens or cats, I think they
feel when they get them from our organization they've had
the proper care that they wouldn't have known what to do,
you know what I mean, yes, exactly, and they wouldn't
have probably taken it to the vet because they don't
have the money to pay the vet bills, and that's
the other problem. So they leave them. They can tend
to leave them more on the street sick because they
can't afford to take them, and no government really helps
very much.
Speaker 2: There's no humane society that has lower costs in Greece.
Speaker 5: Nothing, not really, I mean there are some vets that
will help, and like say, they'll give us a special price,
and they'll give some other organizations a special price, or
you know, maybe if you were friendly with them, they'll
give you something. But there's not really anything organized like that.
They don't really have a lot of shelters either from
the city, which is probably better because I don't think
it would be in the best condition. So yeah, so
a lot of people are on their own. A lot
of people are trying, you know, with dogs or cats,
and it can be very difficult.
Speaker 2: We're going to take a short break and come back
and talk about some exciting things that you have been
coming with smart so I'll be right back.
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Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. We're talking with Julie Kelly, the founder
of Smart. I am so excited because now Smart, from
looking at your website, I know you have various fundraising
events since we talked about one earlier in the show,
but you have one coming up called Wrap to Trap,
and you have who if I could do a drum roll,
you know, like a I don't know, maybe Mike right,
not musical anyway. The Trap King Sterling Davis, who is
a big proponent of T and R, is going to
come to Grease to do this event. So can you
tell us about this event and then overall just an
overall snapshot of your events that you have.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so we're super excited. We saw him in some
probably some YouTube videos or something like the beginning of
twenty twenty one, and we said, let's contact him.
Speaker 2: Sorry, the Cat Rescuers on Amazon? Was he in that one?
Speaker 5: Not The Cat Rescuers? But interestingly I know the producer
of that documentary. Yeah, he's really nice. A Sassy is
in that one right on.
Speaker 2: Si has been on this show.
Speaker 5: I'm mew Sassy. I met her or she'd have her
over to Grease too.
Speaker 2: She's amazing.
Speaker 5: Well, I can get back to the Trap King quickly.
But actually, Rob, the producer of Cat Rescuers, was going
to come to Greece and we have it all scheduled
in April of twenty twenty. We had his ticket and
he was going to also we were going to show
it a different university called Deri, but he was going
to come and we were going to show the cat
documentary here and he was going to stay for a
couple days, and then it all got canceled because of
COVID because it was April twenty twenty. And I met
him in New York when he had his rollout of
the documentary and I just started talking to him and
we became friendly. So he knows that the Trap King
is coming as well. And I met Sasse because she
was there. So it's a small world because Sassey knows
Trap King and he has her in one of his songs.
Oh my god, that's great. It's so funny. The world
is just so small.
Speaker 2: Yes, And he's worked with Nathan Oh, I can't think
of his name, The trap King and Nathan the cat
Dude or something. Have you met him.
Speaker 5: I haven't met him. I've met Sterling because I met
him in October of this past year. He just happened
to be near where my mom lives in North Carolina,
so I was able to meet him and we met
in person and got along really well. He's amazing and
he's going to stay at our cat rescue and staying
for ten days and we have a whole schedule planned
the majority is in Athens, but in different parts of
Athens and different events. But we are going to do
a lot of different days of trappings in all different areas,
so he's going to get to meet the different people
that work in those areas. We're going to do some
events with children so he can talk to the children,
and then we do a lot of arts and crafts,
which also kind of corresponds with our video series that
we can now show in all the Greek schools because
we have that approved from the Ministry of Education. That's
kind of the superhero comes in and superhero we try
to make the kids superheroes. So, as I was saying
with the trap King, we're creating our video number seven,
which is going to specifically be about T and R,
and we've created a trap King figure that's going to
be the superhero for that for that particular video, and
we're going to have it ready so when he comes
we can show that.
Speaker 2: I haven't met him in person. I hope to one day,
but he's so relatable from what I've seen on his
Instagram and everything. He's so positive and he's you know himself,
made so many changes and he's done so so.
Speaker 5: Much for t and R.
Speaker 2: So he's such a great person to represent all of
this now.
Speaker 5: He's amazing. He's well spoken, he's clear about his mission,
he knows exactly what he's doing, what he wants to do.
He truly loves the animals. I've met his own cats,
so he loves them. And that's just somebody that's real,
you know. It's it's very difficult these days, and you
can find someone pure and when they're pure, it's you
just get chills when you meet my people. So, yes, yes,
we're really excited with him. He's going to get to
go on a special trip to meet some monk seals
that are endangered and there's only like six hundred in
the world or something, and we're going to go take
him and Mary is coming, his publicity manager, and we're
going to take him on a trip for there. We're
gonna take him in downtown so you can see the
Acropolis and work with some of the girls that feed
the strays around the Acropolis and also Nine Lives that
they take care of a lot of the animals around
the Acropolis. So yeah, so it's going to be interesting.
We have a tough schedule. It's actually on the website
raptotrap dot com. We have an event page and we're
updating it with we have more details, and I'm hoping
that it also, I think the important thing because in
Greece there are good, there's good and bad, and I
think every country has a percentage of something good at
a certain rate and let's say bad at a certain rate,
and everyone has problems. And I think that's very important
for him to share problems in America too, because sometimes
I think the difference I see is that there's more
animals on the streets here, but in America we have
more shelters that they're stuck in cages and then they
get euthanized and all if they're not adopted in a
certain time. And I know they're trying more to get
rid of all those kill shelters, but we still have
a big problem about that. So sometimes I'm not sure
what's worse, you know, seeing why cat sick on the
street or someone bringing in their cat because they moved
thinking it's going to go to a home and it
gets euthanized, like it's all a problem.
Speaker 2: Their cat, my first cat outing their cat, yeah, on
the streets and we knew he was he knew the
sound of refrigerators, so he knew what being in a
home was. So there's by no means do I think
here in North America were perfect. But you're right, we
have a lot of advantages when it comes to we
have so many shelters, We have a lot of you know,
people that are taken upon themselves do ten or and
are fortunate to be able to do that or or
mix it in with their day job. You know, like
you said, there's just challenges both ways, you know, And
it's right, it's just nice I think for people, you know,
our listeners to get a perspective of what happens in
other countries exactly. You know here and you know, you
think about one thing in the US because that's what
you're used to, but that's not you know, cultural differences
are everywhere, including with our animals. Okay, you have a
lot of great information on your website. So can you
share your website so that people have a chance to
go to your website and you know, see what you
have going and they can donate or you know, educate themselves,
educate their children.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So the website is Let's be Smart dot org
and that's the main US site, and then you can
click on the Greek campaign which takes you to the
Grease site which is Let's be Smart dashgrease dot org.
And on the Grease site you can see a lot
of our missions with our the education, more of the
educational programs and the all the sheltercats and their stories.
And you know something interesting we do here, which it's
it's very interesting that the people love it is every
month we try to honor a business over here that
is somehow animal friendly if we find out maybe they've
they're feeding some strays or or they help us with
let's say the print shop that loves printing all our
T shirts and they're really nice guys and they give
us a good price because they know what we're doing.
And every month we issue a Smart Award and then
we put it on their window of their business and
give them like some gifts, and they're really excited to
get these awards. And I think it's really great for
the community, you know, because then I think, because what
I'm trying to do here is get communities more involved
where they're not just going, oh, the government has to
pay for that, you know what I mean. That's kind
of more here.
Speaker 2: It's very clever, Julie, And it's such a great idea.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they like it. In fact, we gave one
to one business. I think it was a photoshop. Yeah,
it was photo store because we had to get some
photos for something there and they had a couple of
cats kind of in there inside the store. So then
when we gave them the award, the pharmacy people next
door said, oh, we take care of some strays too.
They so like they wanted an award too. So it
was really cute because then we you know, then we
gave them an award and we you know, and then
we promote them on our website, you know, social media,
and every month we do a new business. So it just,
like I say, brings the community more involved, and I
think when they see there's more help, it just makes
it easier. They don't mind pitching in more. A lot
of people have no idea what to do. They see
a sick cat, they have no idea who to call.
There's municipality, maybe we'll answer, maybe won't. We're trying to
work closer with both municipalities of where I live, where
the Foster Hume is and the other is, and we're
in touch with both mayors. They're really really nice, but
they have so much bureaucracy. It's not just them, it's
like who's in in their board, you know. So we're
hoping actually the mayor will roll out our cat welfare program,
which we actually wrote for the mayor. I wrote it
as a consultant. I didn't want to do it through
let's be smart, so it wouldn't compete with any other,
you know, organizations that might be in the area. So
I did it as my own self and they love
and they basically are starting a cat welfare program and
giving fifty thousand euros for the year here in my area.
So we implemented that. Now it's getting it going. That's
the next step.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've done Wonders. It's amazing, I mean just amazing.
I'm going to definitely I can't like to see the
information that's posted with Sterling Davis. That's going to be exciting.
Speaker 5: What people have to realize in is that, like I
said before, here in Greece, there's very very limited resources.
I work, That's why I work all the time, and
in order to be able to do this over here
where in America, I think you get a little bit
more help. But that's not really understood over here. So
because we're also trying to bridge kind of a lot
of us with the VET internship program and volunteers coming over,
it will help us, I think, get us more exposure
because they don't realize because we're not in the US.
But you know what I'm saying that we're trying to
think globally but act locally here. So I'm acting locally
over here, but you know, the resources can be limited
over here. So we're hopefully going to get more exposure
through our programs, and I think that's the biggest challenge.
It's a challenge for everybody over here. I think for
a lot of the foreign countries it's more difficult, whereas
the UK and America people are more used to being
philanthropic and donating. It's a different mindset a little bit
over here. So I think those are some of the challenges.
I do have a cool story I could share with
one special cat. I'd love to hear it, I just
because it involved me personally and it's just interesting. I
was going to read something but anyway, so what happened
is I always go to the tavernas to get my
Greek food and I bring it home to eat because
I'm always working. So I had just picked up my
food and I'm sitting at the traffic light and I
noticed next to the curb a cat and I thought
it was dead. In my mind, I was like, oh,
another dead cat, you know. And then all of a sudden,
because I'm still waiting, I thought I saw the eyes move,
you know. So I'm like, am I imagining that? So
I get out of the car and she was alive.
She just couldn't move, so she hissed at me. I
was like, oh my god, you're alive. So I rushed
her to the vet. Of course, my food was pulled them,
that didn't matter. Took her to the vet and she
was completely paralyzed, like I don't know if she got
like a severe whiplash. It Fortunately, after an MRI, you know,
later on, she didn't have any broken bones or spine.
But we kept her at the vet. Of course, they
gave her cortison right away whatever to take down any swelling,
and I got her reiki acupuncture and she was getting rehabilitated,
and little by little she started to get a little
strength in her front pause, you know, I could push
against them, and she would push a little bit back,
and again, little by little by little, she could start
to get up. She would fall over, she would walk
in circles. But after after probably eight months of rehab,
we brought her to our foster home. She could walk perfectly.
She did have some poly ups, so we operated those
out of her ears and she basically recovered ninety nine percent.
She has a little bit of a wide spread of
her front pause. But anyway, I called her Missy because
she was almost missed on the road and now she's
been adopted. She's been living in the UK for probably
I would say a year. So we have a community group,
let's be smart community group on Facebook for our adopters
and our volunteers so that they can follow cats maybe
they slept with or hung out with, and then our
adopters can share photos and we can all see how
our cats are daying. So anyway, just the other day,
a couple of days ago, the girl Carrie, who was
adopted Missy, had an older cat, and that older cat
just passed away Muffin. But she wrote this is what
she wrote. She said, I've always known that Missy is
a very special cat. But over the last forty eight hours,
I've truly seen just how incredible she really is. Yesterday
was a tough day. My eldest kiddy, Muffin, crossed over
the Rainbow Bridge. The twenty four hours leading up to this,
Missy did not leave muff inside. He was even sick
on her, and she still stayed snuggled up to him,
knowing that he needed her. I've been broken since he passed,
and Missy has not left me for a moment. She
has been licking the tears from my face and cuddling
me constantly. And she said, Missy, I don't know what
I would do with you. You're honestly a cat in a million.
So it's like magical, like she just sensed everything, and
it's for me to like just know that this cat
is like so happy in an amazing home, and that
she just did that is like just gives you that
whole you know, positive. Yeah, it just.
Speaker 2: Looks like it was meant to be and just you
hear the thing and being there at the right time
the right place.
Speaker 5: Aftly, it's amazing. Yeah, it's just wow, it's really amazing.
We did make a video for her too, before she
was adopted. So you can actually go to our website
and under our adoption page we have success stories and
on her page you can watch a little video and
see how she looked, and it gives a lot of
the photos when she couldn't move except for her head.
That was the only thing she can move. But they're
so it's just amazing, like how incredible they are and
how they just don't complain and they just keep trying
and trying and trying.
Speaker 2: When you let them in. When you let the cats in,
or you know, the dogs in were catted, so cats
let them in. Animals they give you so much that
just can't even be disguised.
Speaker 5: Thanks spiritual. It's something spiritual. They're like little angels. I
feel like they're little angels and they can stay with you.
I had a cat come into my dream and warn
me about my other cat. I can't even it's just
I've had incredible stories about cat. Or I think of
a cat that I haven't seen alsodden. The next day
I see it walking on the street. I'm like, that's
so weird. I was just thinking about that cat. It's
just and you know, I've had cats my whole life,
so I've had me. I'm on like my third round
of cats. You know, so I grew up with cats.
My family had cats, and I love them so much.
Speaker 2: Let me ask this, did you ever think while you
were even okay, let's say past growing up, but when
you were studying Greece whatever, that you would be over
there in Greece and have with this amazing organization that
is doing so much for.
Speaker 5: Cats in Greece.
Speaker 2: Did you ever think that would ever come to fruition?
Speaker 5: I mean when I first wanted to come to Greece,
or when before I knew about Greece.
Speaker 2: Maybe you know, while you had you said you had
cats all your life, and did you ever think you'd
be in another country doing these amazing things?
Speaker 5: I have to say I can tell you, well, not
necessarily Greece, because I wouldn't have known too much about Greece.
But when I was younger, probably eighteen or nineteen, and
I first started a job at the accounting firm which
ended up becoming mine. But anyway, what it was in
my mind, I wanted to win the lottery so I
could have something for the animals. So that was my
very youthful It's funny because I say today I kind
of won the lottery in life, you know what I mean.
I didn't physically win the New York Lottery even though
I play, But I feel like I won the lottery
of life in order to be able to have a
business that I'm able to thrive and work very very hard,
and be able to dedicate most of my resources to
these cats because they're they're just so amazing. And the
whole education thing. I feel like I want to leave something,
you know, not just feeding and rescuing the cats. I
have the whole educational programs and getting people involved and
all these things that go together, you know, with the
municipalities and yeah, doing all of that, it is like
the lottery, Like I've won the lottery of life.
Speaker 2: So I think you're right, and you know, I think
everyone should go over to your site and just see
some of the pictures and things that you've done. It's
let's be smart dot org.
Speaker 5: Yes, and they can come volunteer. We have a lot
of American volunteers. Like I say, if if anyone is
a veterinary student, we have a special program where we've
sent our program to all the universities in America. We
have students coming from Auburn, University of Minnesota, Virginia Tech,
Tess Goodgie. I can't never see that name one coming
from Tufts. I think actually after Sterling did a speech there,
a vet in turn wrote to us, and I believe
she's scheduled to come ready. So a lot of people
vacation in Greece. So if you want to come, you
can stay for a few days and then do other things,
you know, and you can stay at our cat rescue.
It's we have full amenities, you know, bedrooms and you know,
if you volunteer, we give breakfast and lunch, and there's
some local things sites you can see. We're near the
Temple of Poseidon and near Sunio. We're not too far.
We're close to the airport. We can get you to
a metro to go to Athens. That takes about an
hour or so more. But you know, so I think
it's kind of cool that you can combine a trip
and do something philanthropic as well, and come and help
a little bit for the strays while you're here.
Speaker 2: You know, you know, I really mine of my goals
and it's for next year, for our big birthday, is
to go to Grooves. So Rince if that happens, I
will definitely contact you and say I'm trying to schedule.
Sometimes I could spend at least a day my partner.
We can never go for too long because our animals,
so it gets him upset.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so at least a day just absorbing everything and
you know, have a lot to share in another.
Speaker 5: Episode for sure.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you so much for coming on
Patitude and sharing all of this wonderful information in your story.
You are an amazing woman and what you've done is incredible.
I mean it's mind boggling because there's so much involved,
so many roadblocks, then it sounds like you've just blasted
over most of them. You know, huge congratulations for everything
you've done. And I know you're not stopped. I mean,
this is just part of where you're headed. You know
their path is still going. So I wish you lazing
up and any luck we might meet in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2: I want to say, Yugene, thanks to Julie Kelly for
coming on Catitude and best of lots of Sterling Davis
with his trip to Grease. I can't wait to see
that that's going to be in May. Check out the
Let's Be Smart dot org website. There's a lot of
wonderful information there. I'd like to thank my producer, Mark
Winter for making me my guests sound amazing, and thanks
to my cat crew that's taught me more about cats
than anything else, and that is Dennis, Mollie and Charlotte.
And remember always to hey, lose the attitude and have cattitude.
Speaker 4: Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on petlive
radio dot com, The tid