Screenshot of the social post of “CatVana” created by Kayla Delcoure for Pippi’s Place.
At Pippi’s
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At Pippi’s
Screenshot of the social post of “CatVana” created by Kayla Delcoure for Pippi’s Place.
At Pippi’s
Carvana presented itself as a new and innovative way to buy a car. How about taking this idea and making it work for adopting a pet?
Kayla Delcoure manages social media for Pippi’s Place, a cat shelter in Atlanta. She created a creative social post inspired by the online used car retailer to help find new homes for its felines.
Those to adopt include a “2014 Furrari” named Arlis (black exterior, power nap) a “2015 Furcedes” named Buddy (custom gray saddle kit, heated seat) and Cassie, a “2022 Meowzda” (custom multi-color exterior, auto- cleaning).
It all started with the search for a truck
“My inspiration for CatVana is uneventful with humor,” Delcoure wrote to NPR in an email. “My husband has been wanting to buy a truck for months and sometimes brings me his phone to show me the ads. Tuesday morning, while I was thinking of cute ways to display all nine available cats from Pippi’s Place in one message, my husband walked into my office to show me a list of trucks.”
Although Delcoure wasn’t very interested in the truck, the image with detailed year, make and model information got her creative wheels spinning.
She said she went to Carvana’s website and created a page with several cat listings aside from car search. “Different fun descriptions kept popping into my head like ‘four legged drive’, ‘rear air vent’ and the like, so I continued and made the individual lists as well,” said wrote Delcoure.
Pippi’s Place was launched two years ago and is named after director Vicki Grizzard’s black kitten, whom she found abandoned and in need of help. She named her Fifi, after the mischievous book character.
Sadly, Pippi the cat passed away due to an accident, but Pippi’s Place continues to be his legacy. It is a place “where the light of love always shines on our loved ones and serves as a beacon to those in need”. Delcoure tells NPR.
Kitten season keeps volunteers busy
“Right now we are working during kitten season, so we have a large number of little kittens who are too young to be adopted and some with illnesses and injuries that need to be treated before going to permanent homes” , said Delcoure. “Our volunteers are literally working around the clock (every four hours) to care for these kittens.”
Grizzard thought CatVana’s social post was adorable. Delcoure shared the post on Reddit, where it got 65,000 upvotes and over 1,500 comments. Grizzard and Delcoure marveled at the response.
“We received a wave of encouragement. People even asked to donate,” says Delcoure. And the organization has received an adoption request for “Furrari” Arlis, a friendly senior cat, from a family in Canada. “They are ready to go through the adoption and transfer process to bring him home!”
Delcoure says his favorite commercial is for Mr. Goodbar, “the 2023 Mini Pooper”.
“His list was the last one I needed to create and I knew I wanted it to be something adorable and relative to his size,” she said. “I happen to own and love a Mini Cooper and I knew the ‘mini’ part would suit it perfectly, so that’s what I chose!”
Delcoure said the volunteers who keep Pippi’s Place running and making sure all the kittens find homes deserve all the credit.
“We have many more volunteers working countless hours donating their blood, sweat and tears for these cats,” she wrote. “I wouldn’t have anything to post if they weren’t doing such an amazing job caring for our kittens.”
npr