Six months ago to the day, I found out that the Site Delivery Lead in my office, Heeley, had passed away unexpectedly and tragically. It’s not the first time I’ve ever lost someone I’ve known, but it was the first time I’d lost someone who was in my life every day. Going to work was difficult for a while, but eventually, work found a new normal, and we were all able to get back to work. As the months went on though, I still couldn’t shake the fear that Heeley was being forgotten in the office, after being such an influential force in our development. So a few weeks back, I spoke to our current Site Delivery Lead about my desire to do something to remember Heeley, since her birthday was at the end of November. With a bit of work and collaboration, Heeley’s Week of Humanitarian Work was created for the final week of November, with the cumulative event today at the Toronto Humane Society.
Heeley loved cats. Her two cats were Instagram-Famous, and she bragged about it all the time. After her death, I worried about her two cats, and wondered if they were alright. So, as a way to help cats like Heeley’s, I suggested we do something to help cats at the Toronto Humane Society. We ended up working with Toronto Street Cats and joining in with their biweekly cat shelter building workshop.
The cat shelter building workshop runs like a well oiled machine, and seems to attract a good crowd of new and veteran volunteers each workshop. It’s an assembly line essentially, with everyone having their role to make sure we do the best we can.
How to make an outdoor cat shelter
The first step is preparing the styrofoam that will line the inside of the shelters. This was perhaps the most time intensive of the jobs today, and every piece was carefully counted to ensure that nothing was wasted.
The next step was what I did. Sorting out the plastic containers and making sure that every container had a styrofoam bottom, sides and ends. I kept count of what we needed, and tried to make sure no surplus was needed.
Once the styrofoam and plastic containers were prepared, they had to be taped together. This is where the majority of the volunteers worked, and involved a lot of team work. The next step was my favourite, even though I didn’t get to try it. Once the containers are securely taped together, they use a giant machine to drill a cat-sized hole into the side of the container. Once the hole is drilled into the container, a piece of piping is put into the container for phase two of taping.
The pipes then need to be taped into place securely, since this is the entrance to the shelter for the cats. If they fall off, all the heat will be sucked out, and that would ruin the point of the shelters!
Later on, after we left, hay was put inside all of the containers, and a styrofoam lined lid seals up the container. Since we had so many people there today, we were able to fly through the expected amount of containers done, and everyone came out of it feeling great.
Volunteering feels good all year round, but this time of year it feels especially good, knowing that winter is coming and that the cats are going to need somewhere to stay. Of course, the goal of programs like the Toronto Street Cats is to get these cats spayed or neutered so the street cat population is under control, so the funds raised from selling these shelters help a lot.
Heeley, I hope that you were watching over us at the Humane Society and smiled. We did it because of you, and hopefully it’s a tradition our office will be able to continue to honour you.
Thanks Rebecca!