What is Cat Hustler?
Cat Hustler started with one person and a nickname in a shelter hallway, trying to help rescuers write better bios about the cats they were fighting so hard for. It was never meant to become an organization; just a way to make the work a little easier for the people doing it.
Over the years, it grew into something different. Something bigger and quieter at the same time. A place for the fosters, TNRers, transporters, midnight problem-solvers, and small grassroots teams who keep showing up even when they’re completely worn down.
Today, Cat Hustler focuses on building community and life-saving networks through in-person gatherings, annual events like The Acatemy, local and regional meetups, virtual community spaces, and practical support for the people who do the real work behind rescue.
Why is Cat Hustler?
Cat Hustler exists to make connection possible for the people who carry the heart of rescue. The work has expanded from digital storytelling into a broader role: organizing low-pressure events, building community networks, and offering peer-led spaces where rescuers can be celebrated and seen exactly as they are.
With the addition of Discord, Cat Hustler is expanding into virtual game nights, roundtables, and collaborative community-building sessions for people who need people but don't want to put on a bra.
Everything I build is designed intentionally, shaped around the realities of rescue life: limited bandwidth, deep grief, and a need for connection that doesn’t feel forced or performative.
Who is Cat Hustler?
My name is Julia Grosz, and like many rescuers, I found my way into this work after losing my one-and-only. The world felt out of balance in a way that only helping other soulmates find each other could begin to repair. When my first foster was adopted in 2015, I watched a girl and her new cat lock eyes the same way Monkey and I once had, and that moment set me on the path that became Cat Hustler.
Rescuers were the first people who ever made me feel truly understood. I’d spent most of my life being told I was “too much” of one thing or another — too intense, too sensitive, too analytical, too passionate. But in rescue, those traits weren’t liabilities. They were useful. They were normal. They were welcome. The rescue community gave me space, courage, belonging, and the will to grow. Cat Hustler is my way of giving that back.
Everything I do through this organization comes down to two goals:
to bring people and their animals together, and to celebrate and support the rescuers who make that possible.
I’m based in Northern Virginia and support Cat Hustler through my work as a geologist; a grounding (ba dum tiss) contrast to the emotional, unpredictable world of rescue, and a reminder that everyone in this field carries a life outside it, too.
