Kristi Brooks
Kristi Brooks is the director of operations for Cat Adoption Team (CAT), the Northwest’s largest adoption-guarantee, cat-focused shelter. CAT finds homes for approximately 3,300 cats each year, including more than 1,000 “graduates” of the kitten foster program.
Kristi got her start in animal welfare in 2002 as a foster volunteer at CAT. Three years later, she became the organization’s first paid kitten foster coordinator. During her tenure at CAT, Kristi has helped develop the foster program into a nationally recognized model, Fostering 4 Rock Stars (F4RS). Kristi has traveled to shelters across the country to help them implement kitten foster programs based on the F4RS model, resulting in dramatic increases in save rates in these shelters. In 2019 and 2020 (before the pandemic) Kristi trained 50 new students via Maddie’s Fund Apprenticeship program. The program is moving to an online version this year.
A native Oregonian, Kristi lives just outside of Portland with her husband and her latest batch of foster kittens.
