The animal rescue society Villikettir (Stray Cats) held a garage sale this past weekend at Grandi, Fréttablaðið reports. The society’s health fund is nearly empty, and there is an urgent need for funding for upcoming projects this summer. The cats Bjartur and Koli warmly welcomed passersby patronising the garage sale on Saturday.
Life Goes On
“We were saving money to buy a house, but we found ourselves in an area where there were many sick kittens,” says Arndís Björg Sigurgeirsdóttir, Villikettir’s director, in an interview with Fréttablaðið. “Although the veterinarians gave us good deals, the 6.4 million ISK of the money we needed just to take care of these kittens came out of our own fund. Life comes first, so the house was put on hold.”
“We’re going to take on three more areas this summer,” she continues. “In one of them, outside the capital area, there are about two hundred stray cats that we know of. It goes without saying that when there are so many cats living together in such close quarters, there will be some infections among them.”
She says that it is therefore necessary for the society to improve the standing of its health fund. The summer will be a busy time, with the society continuing its six-year project to rehabilitate and house stray cats. That is, if they want to. Arndís says that the cats often do not want to be moved into a home, and thus are often returned to the place where they were caught, there to be regularly fed and monitored.
Thus Arndís and the other Villikettir board members decided to hold the garage sale with the assistance of volunteers. It was held at Fiskislóð 79A all this past weekend from noon to 17:00, and will be held at the same time all next weekend. All matter of things can be found there, and although the items for sale are not all necessarily cat-related, it is unmistakably evident that the sale is being run by cat lovers. The proceeds in their entirety will go directly to the society, the health fund, and the new housing fund. Arndís says that the society has earned quite a bit of money, which will be enough to keep it going through any rough financial moments.
Furry Receptionists
When Fréttablaðið’s journalist came to visit the Villikettir garage sale today, he was greeted by two four-legged hosts. The Norwegian forest cat Bjartur and former stray cat Klói were present alongside their owner Samantha Miles. Samantha took Bjartur, a purebred Norwegian forest cat, into her care because his former owner could not keep him, and a year later she adopted Klói, who is from the Westman Islands off the southern coast of Iceland, and was adopted from there when he was a little kitten.
Klói was undeniably a bit shier than Bjartur, who played constantly and wanted more than anything else to get out of his cage to greet the customers helping Villikettir through hard times. Bjartur and Klói were only present for the first half of the day, with the goal being to get more owners who have adopted their cats from Villikettir to come to the sale the next day and next weekend.
Those who wish to donate to Villikettir may do so with the bank account 111-26-73030, kennitala 710314-1790. Here is the Facebook event for the garage sale.
Note: Due to the effect the Coronavirus is having on tourism in Iceland, it’s become increasingly difficult for the Grapevine to survive. If you enjoy our content and want to help the Grapevine’s journalists do things like eat and pay rent, please consider joining our High Five Club.
You can also support us by checking out our shop, loaded with books, apparel and other cool merch, that you can buy and have delivered right to your door.
Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here!
