We’re the Tompkins family, John, Jelena, and Maelle. Mom, Jelena, saw a Wild Blue Facebook post in the spring looking for new volunteers and saw that the minimum age to volunteer was 12, the age Maelle had just turned.  She thought it would be a great opportunity for Maelle to learn about volunteering since the whole family loves cats and adopted a kitten from Wild Blue back in the summer of 2020. We have 3 cats at home, Charlie and Conan are brothers we took in from friends who needed to give them up, and Cassiopeia (Cassi for short) was known as Xterra when she was at her Wild Blue foster home.

Maelle is a competitive figure skater who goes to online school, so the Socialization team shift worked fit perfectly after skating in the morning and before she gets back on the ice in the afternoon.  She’s been around cats since she was born and can’t imagine life without them. When she’s not on the ice, she loves reading.
Jelena works part-time as a virtual assistant, created the YouTube Channel Life as a Cancer Survivor after surviving a stage 3 colorectal cancer diagnosis, and sews Maelle’s figure skating costumes.  She loves to run and has finished the Pikes Peak Ascent 3 times.  She got her first cat when she was 6 years old and has been a cat lover ever since.  She works with Maelle on the Socialization team.