Chiara's Cat Café | #5 We Say Goodbye

We say goodbye, we hold on tight to memories that never die.

Like all good things, this project has also come to an end. I am sure most of you will be sad, or had great expectations, and let me tell you something: me too. I too am sad, I too was hopeful, but I do not regret a single thing, I’d do it all over again and fail again three thousand times. It’s okay to fail, it’s part of an entrepreneurial journey, and at the end of the day, everything I learned throughout my year of planning and researching will be forever useful to me. I have met amazing people, such as Stijn and my PR Yoanie, and I learned what it means to speak up for yourself and your ideas.

It’s okay to fail, it’s part of an entrepreneurial journey.

You must be asking yourself what happened, why the project stopped: despite my best efforts, it was simply not possible to make the cat café happen in the USP right now and how I wanted. For every closed door I faced I found a way around, but at some point the door turned into a wall I am not economically equipped to climb.

I am not down because I will not be able to be remembered as the founder of the first cat café on campus: I feel blue because of all the innocent cats I was not able to save. Therefore, my wish is for all of you to adopt as many rescues as you can if you wish to have a cat, to feed the malnourished cats you see in the street when you travel to other countries, to keep fighting for animal rights. Because at the end of the day, the entire idea behind the cat café was to help cats to find a home and abandon the streets, to help people in need of affection to find a feline soulmate and make the animal world a better place for the creatures living in it.

I do not regret a single thing, I’d do it all over again and fail again three thousand times.

If someone were to pick up my project in the future, I would love to see it happen. Until then, I will keep learning about entrepreneurship at the Centre, acquiring as much knowledge as I can to maybe climb that one last wall in the future.

Until then, I would love to say a massive thank you to Stijn, Bianca, Wiepke, Yoanie, and all the other amazing people who supported me in this project since day one. The café might not be open and running, but you will always have a special place in my heart.