Stop the Suffering

Everyone is welcome to visit us, play with the cats, bring some treats, donate, or sponsor your special one with lots of updates sent to you. Volunteer and gain work experience; lend a hand to see how much work is put into each day. Living is giving. Sponsor a family with a foster, updates, and videos sent; help feed the desperate in serious need, both animals and people.

Volunteers are our favorite breed ♡

Giving your time and commitment to our animals in need is the best gift you can give them. It’s not easy work. Sanitizing, feeding, and keeping everything in order is hard going. It’s constant, mostly too. We have to be super organized and alert to any changes or needs of the animals: food stock and appointments, travel arrangements, stocking up, and of course, spending quality time with the furries. They absolutely love humans, some more than others. We have mentally stimulating games for them, toys, and catnip. They love their food, and you only have to make a noise with something crinkly, and they come running at you like they’ve never been fed! We keep their sponsors and followers up to date with everything. We constantly fundraise; we never have enough and always have new rescues. The opportunity to go out street feeding is a choice. Some days are tougher than others. The street souls are so grateful and happy to see you; it makes everything worth it. It’s not sitting around playing with kittens all day; it’s full-on hard work emotionally and physically. You have your time free to go out and explore. There are lots of wonderful sights to see or the main Istanbul for a few days. The locals and the village are crime-free, zero. It’s an extremely safe place, especially for women or girls. They are fascinated by foreigners, are so humble and hospitable, and want to help. You will have a beautiful experience coming here. We all dig in together, whether it’s shopping, cooking (Saziye is the queen of that), cleaning, and whatever needs doing gets done. Come and experience this and live with the locals. It mostly changes people’s lives.

We now accommodate volunteers traveling to Olmstead’s H.O.P.E. In the last six months, we have been blessed with amazing volunteers: Brie, our animal angel from the US; Madeline and Jayme from Australia on sabbaticals; Melania from Argentina; and Lóa from Iceland. We provide full support and guidance for solo female travelers, allowing them to work as a team and also have free time to explore while living with locals. It’s a safe environment that changes lives and helps abused animals recover. Offering your time is the most important gift you can give these precious animals. Volunteers often leave with unforgettable memories and sadness at leaving their new furry friends behind. Please DM for more information and available volunteer dates.

Housing donations – rescue one kitty by paying per day to help us help them: $5, €5, or £4 per day. Pay as much or as little as you want. Winter shelters – we try our best to build weatherproof shelters in Istanbul and the Bronx. We need materials or donations to buy waterproof tape, strong trash bags, Styrofoam boxes, and pre-made shelters too.

Winter blankets for animal shelters, government-run shelters, and Olmsteads H.O.P.E. bags of straw for outside shelters. It must be straw; it’s the only material that repels moisture, protecting the animals from freezing to death.

Food – Never enough; we feed constantly all over Istanbul to street and abandoned animals, cats, and dogs. Please buy online and send to Olmstead’s H.O.P.E. or donate to Istanbul-Bronx for us to buy.

Flight volunteers – in Europe and the USA, if you’re heading home, be a volunteer to take a special furry friend to their forever home. It costs you nothing and changes a life; we do all the work, or we find a volunteer needed for any other charity. You just have to meet at the airport with time to check in with the animal. Please reference any particular donation or where it’s most needed.