LucyBalu's #allpawsahome goes Vienna!

LucyBalu's Roots - How It All Began in the Shelter

As you probably know, LucyBalu has its roots in animal welfare. It all began in 2015 with the refurbishment of the Munich animal shelter, or more specifically, its 50 cat rooms. What started as a pro bono friendship project by our founder Sebastian Frank quickly drew attention with our very different kind of cat furniture. The first inquiries came in, and Sebastian began wondering how to fill this obvious gap in the cat furniture market - and the rest, as they say, is history. And of course, that story is far from over.

All Paws A Home - An Animal Welfare Initiative

What do we mean by that? Among other things, our shelter initiative All Paws A Home! Ever since our founding, it has been our mission not only to remember our roots in animal welfare, but to honour them. Our goal is to equip animal shelters and animal welfare associations with cat furniture. We firmly believe that our furniture can create much more space and opportunity for cats, especially in cramped spaces like shelter rooms, than conventional bulky scratching posts. Because our furniture automatically makes the third dimension of a room available to cats - offering more opportunities for climbing, scratching, and sleeping - it noticeably improves the animals' wellbeing. And that, by the way, is one of the things closest to our hearts: cats that are visibly happy and comfortable! What's more, LucyBalu's cat furniture is significantly more hygienic and easier for shelter staff to clean than the usual wood or plush furniture.

How Does the #allpawsahome Animal Welfare Initiative Work?

So how is our initiative structured? On one hand, we select shelters suggested to us by our community and equip them with our furniture. On the other hand, we have Sandra on board - our vet and a former shelter director - who knows the animal welfare scene in Germany well and regularly points us towards shelters in need or interesting projects. To really make a meaningful difference, of course, donating two or three pieces of furniture isn't enough; whenever possible, we want to furnish entire rooms and turn them into places that are truly worth living in for the cats. Through various projects, such as the 2022 Cat Calendar and our Cat Model Contest, we hope not only to draw attention to this project close to our hearts, but also to actively get you - our community and all cat lovers - involved in our initiative.

The 2022 Cat Calendar - A Pro Bono Project

As a brand that originated in an animal shelter, it's important to us to carry our values out into the world through a special project. We want to draw attention to a topic that, unfortunately, is all too often forgotten. To spread this message, we teamed up with 13 photographers for whom their cat is not just a companion, but a full-fledged member of the family - photographers who share our values and our vision of animal welfare.

The calendar is meant to show how wonderful it can be to share your life with a four-legged friend.
But it's also a call to remember all the animals who haven't yet found their "forever home."

Because we used the entire profit to equip the Vienna animal shelter with LucyBalu's cat furniture.

But how did we end up choosing the Vienna shelter?

The 2022 Cat Model Contest

In 2022, we decided that during the Cat Model Contest, we would declare a certain amount of money as an in-kind donation for every vote cast - meaning that everyone who voted in the CMC indirectly donated to animal welfare. Every single vote contributed to the final donation amount, because LucyBalu donated for every vote. Even before the wonderful contest began, we had already sat down together to decide which shelter we wanted to support with donations afterwards. After Hamburg, Trier, and Starnberg, we were

looking for an animal welfare organisation with a lot of cats that could use some help accordingly. And anyone who knows a bit about animal welfare knows - that applies to almost every shelter! So the choice was overwhelming at first.

Thanks to our unique partner and well-known influencer inkstaboy, though, we quickly found what we were looking for and reached an agreement. Florian, as he's known off-screen, is a self-confessed cat lover with a big heart for animals. He also lives in Vienna. He supported us with fantastic photos for our 2022 Cat Calendar and was also a jury member for our Cat Model Contest. So what could be more fitting than choosing a shelter in his home city of Vienna?

Not only is Vienna home to one of the largest animal shelters in all of Europe. Tierschutz Austria, as it's officially known, is also Austria's oldest animal shelter, with decades of successful animal welfare work, projects, and international missions behind it. As soon as the decision was made, we reached out to Vienna - and an instant friendship was born. The team on site was incredibly friendly, open-minded, and deeply grateful for every kind of support. We hit it off right away and were in complete agreement - this was going to be a wonderful project!

Off to the Vienna Animal Shelter...

In October 2022, the time had finally come - we got to travel to Vienna for two days and, using the proceeds from our 2022 Calendar Project, install our furniture for the cats in two large cat rooms. Many phone calls, plans, and - above all - a lot of anticipation had come before it! Because this project truly means a lot to us, and in Vienna we were welcomed with open arms, open ears, and open doors. Right in the morning, we set off with Dani, the local marketing and donations manager. We were shown the cat rooms the furniture was intended for. The large pallet of brand-new furniture from our warehouse had already arrived two days earlier. Naturally, we had carefully chosen the pieces. We wanted to create not only lounging spots with the STRAIGHT or the WAVE - but also cosy cuddle spots with the SWING and the CAVE, as well as climbing opportunities with the CATWALK and JUMPER, or the STEPS. And, as a nice side effect, the shelter staff would be happy too - since almost all our furniture is wall-mounted, the floor would stay clear, meaning less work when cleaning the rooms. A particularly lovely bonus for us visitors from Munich - we spent the whole morning happily petting kittens. And adult cats. And purring toms. And more, and more... Right on time at nine o'clock, the hardworking helpers from the shelter team joined us. The caretaker and cat keepers had been preparing and planning for days, thinking through the best way to mount the furniture. The rooms had even been freshly painted especially for the occasion - so you can imagine everyone was quite excited.

Shelter director Stephan took a lot of time for us - that is, for Sandra and inkstaboy, who of course couldn't pass up the chance to see the shelter of his home city from behind the scenes. During a tour, we were not only able to see the incredible number of animals (the shelter houses nearly 1,500 animals at any given time), but also visit some residents who are rather unusual for an animal shelter. Among others, monkeys, rare pig breeds, and caimans populate the huge grounds.

What became immediately clear: as in almost every shelter, money is tight here too. As an organisation that depends on donations, the shelter often has to economise. We were absolutely thrilled, because our help would arrive exactly where it was needed. The before photos clearly show just how much improvisation is required in shelters. Since everything runs on donations, it's simply impossible to set fixed budgets for each area - a problem shared by nearly every animal welfare organisation. When we asked Stephan, we learned that nearly 600 cats find their "forever homes" through the Vienna shelter every year - an enormous number that makes it even clearer just how much of an individual story stands behind every single animal.

We were completely overwhelmed by all this input and grateful for these fascinating insights. And while we were still standing with the goats and geese, the call came - the first pieces of furniture were already up on the walls, and they looked amazing! By early afternoon, after hours of drilling, hammering, and screwing, the moment had finally arrived. The first big room was finished, cleaned, and ready for its new residents. The team showed us the cats who would be the first to move into the large room. Six orphaned street kittens, found in Croatia and brought to the shelter by the team as part of their international animal welfare work, were the first to move into the newly finished room. We're not exaggerating when we say that quite a few people watched with delight as the little ones made their first tentative jumping and climbing attempts on the furniture. The CAVE was an instant hit, and cuddling on the SWING made immediate sense to every single cat. How exactly to use the STEPS - and what the JUMPER was even for - was thoroughly investigated over the following hours.

The second, smaller room was also occupied right away. Bounty, the little black-and-white kitten, very nearly smuggled himself into the train back to Munich thanks to an acute case of cuteness overload... but in the end, reason won out for Sandra... along with her eighteen-year-old cat Scampi, who has absolutely zero interest in new roommates. By the end of the day, everyone involved was happy and exhausted - a wonderful combination.

For us at LucyBalu, one thing is clear: we want to push our initiative forward and raise even more awareness for it than before. Whether through donations, sponsorships, or through you, our customers, we hope to run at least one big fundraising campaign again in 2023. But other animal welfare ideas came to us on the drive back to Munich too - so stay tuned, we'll be telling you more about that here soon!

That's why we want to use our 2023 Calendar Project to give back again in 2023.