OUR TEAM
Get to Know the Faces behind TippedEars
RENAE
Cofounder
Renae has loved animals ever since she could remember. She began her journey in animal welfare at a very young age - her childhood lemonade stand proceeds went to stopping puppy mills. She then began volunteering at her local animal shelter where she was introduced to cat care and worked as a junior zookeeper for many years. Her rescue efforts in LA started with bottle baby foster kittens. Renae quickly fell in love with rescue and went down the rabbit hole. Through fostering, Renae began working with adoption teams to find homes for rescue cats. She then began volunteering her spare time at a local kitten nursery where she realized there was much more to cat rescue than fostering kittens. She helped develop foster and adoption programs for local rescues, mentored other foster parents, and began to learn about the important role of community cats in Southern California's society. Kitten rescues are flooded yearly with pleas for help, and both shelters and rescues reach their capacity each year. The solution? TNR. Through this passion of rescuing animals, Renae decided it was time to focus on the solution. Renae is a proud mom of 4 cats, including one who has cerebellar hypoplasia, and two rescue dogs.
VITA
Cofounder
Vita grew up in Italy, where the cat overpopulation issue is no better than in the US. While visiting her grandparents in Tuscany, she would always feed and befriend all the outdoor cats, and even talked her Grandma into adopting a few of them. Upon moving to Southern California in 2018, Vita started getting involved with the rescue world by becoming a volunteer at a local kitten nursery. She has since fostered cats and kittens of all ages, including bottle babies, friendly and unsocialized mamas, teenagers and medical fosters. She has been a foster mentor for other foster parents, as well as a member of adoption and TNR teams at a local rescue. The more exposure to the rescue world she got, the clearer it became to her that the problem needs to be addressed at its roots. By improving the lives of community cats, Vita feels she will really be contributing to stopping the never-ending cycle of suffering.
Vita has a background in science and has been working in the research world for over 15 years. Her will to continuously learn and find methodical solutions to problems is her driving force through any challenge she faces in life.
Vita is a proud mom of 4 cats, including a special needs boy, Sebastian, she nurtured back to health after he suffered a severe nerve injury as a baby.
PRISCILLA
Community Cat Outreach Coordinator
Priscilla grew up in Southern California and has loved animals from a very young age. At five years old, she fell in love with her first tom cat Lucky. Unbeknownst to her, Lucky was actually a neighborhood cat that her mom allowed inside. And so she remembers the day her mother put Lucky outside, watching him trot away, never to return. That cat would leave an everlasting impact on her.
In 2017 Priscilla had her very first experience in TNR and following that got involved in fostering kittens and nursing mama cats for a few different local rescues. Although she loves fostering cute kittens, her true passion is caring for street cats.
After starting a new job in the city of Compton, she was really faced with the reality of the feral cat overpopulation. She became a colony caretaker for a few different cat colonies in Compton. And ultimately her love for these cats inspired her to want to do more for them and drove her to focus on TNRing the cats of Compton who desperately need the help. Everything came full circle this year when she joined our rescue. Priscilla is a proud mom to five beautiful girls, four of which happen to be feline.
