Little lives need your help! The Catwalk Challenge is back for 2025 and our goal is to raise $10,000 to help cover after-hours emergency vet visits. Signing up is easy: simply register, then take your kitty for a harness walk every day between the 1st and 10th of October, and share with family and friends to help raise money. Or if you don’t have a kitty, come up a different challenge you’d like to do – it could even involve dogs! Let’s make 2025 a big one. Ready to take on the Catwalk Challenge?
As the days grow longer and the weather warms, we know something significant is fast approaching: kitten season.
It’s a time when Ten Lives sees an influx of newborn kittens – sometimes with their mother, sometimes orphaned – all of whom need to be placed with our incredible foster carers. It’s also a period when fundraising becomes especially crucial.
You see, foster carers don’t just open their homes to care for cats and kittens until they’re ready for adoption, they also step up to manage after-hours medical care when it’s needed.
As Ten Lives CEO Noel Hunt explains, “Each year during kitten season, Ten Lives has to find over $10,000 for after hours emergency vet services. This is on top of running our own Vet Surgery during business hours where we are providing more than 10,000 treatments per year to all the lost and unwanted cats and kittens.”
That’s where the Catwalk Challenge comes in.
Launched in 2021, the Catwalk Challenge was created to help cover the costs of after-hours vet visits for our foster carers. The aim is simple: raise $10,000 in just 10 days. Participants register their kitty, then take them on a daily harness walk between 1 and 10 October, sharing their journey online while their friends and family sponsor them.
If just 100 people got 10 friends to sponsor them a dollar a day, we would achieve our goal.
It’s also a fun way to promote responsible cat ownership by encouraging the use of a harness and leash when taking cats outside, plus, it’s great enrichment for cats. And of course, seriously cute kitty photos are shared along the way.
The first year was a huge success, and we knew we had to do it again.
Impact of the Catwalk Challenge
- In 2021, we raised $7,500. This year we met Benji, who has since become a regular participant and raised over $1,600 in total. Benji’s birthday coincides with the Catwalk so there’s always a birthday post to look forward to.
- In 2022, we raised $10,683. This was when we introduced donating to the overall Challenge, in addition to sponsoring individual catwalkers.
- In 2023, we raised $8,270. This year we introduced the option to create your own challenge, so you no longer needed a cat to be involved. Whether it was taking a dog for a walk (ally moment), going for a run, dancing, or anything else, people could find their own creative ways to participate.
- In 2024, we raised $7,305. This year Willow became the youngest ever participant in the Catwalk Challenge, at just 8 months old.
- Over the four years, we raised an incredible $33,758.
Now, as we approach our fifth year, we’re asking for your help once more. How far can we go this time? Remember, if just 100 people get 10 friends to sponsor them a dollar a day, we’ll smash that goal. It’s easy to sign up, and you don’t even need a kitty to take part.
Kittens being born this season need your support!
The Story of Catbassador, Jezabel
We cannot forget the efforts of catbassador Jezabel, who remains a wonderful success story. Jezabel has a particularly active lifestyle, and after being returned multiple times by owners who couldn’t meet her needs, she found Jimmy. Jimmy takes Jezabel on regular adventures, from beach hikes to skatepark visits. They were a purrfect match. And that’s what made her the catbassador for the Catwalk Challenge!