About the Sanctuary

Meet Our Staff

Volcano Cat Sanctuary is led by a board of directors and a caring team of ethical, responsible, passionate and experienced leaders who have vast experience in animal welfare.

• Erin Young

  Founder

  Erin founded the Volcano Cat Sanctuary in April 2024. Erin has been fostering kittens on the Island of Hawaii since 2018, and has been involved in animal rescue her whole life. Previously, Erin was involved in volunteering for trap, spay, and neuter programs, environment education programs, and no-kill animal shelters. When she moved to Hawaii in 2014, she quickly recognized the huge overpopulation of cats on the islands. She also became aware of the lack of resources to help deal with this issue, and the threat that the overpopulation of cats was having on native bird and sea mammals. She became passionate about helping to find a solution to these issues any way that she could. She decided to create a non-profit and focus on fostering kittens and building a cat sanctuary where the many homeless cats on Hawaii Island could live out their days with safety and peace.

  

• Alessandra Rupar-Weber

  Intake Coordinator and Social Media Manager

  Alessandra Nicola Rupar came to Hawaiʻi via Vienna, Austria. She began her career in the fashion industry, spent several years volunteering at the European Kriya Yoga Headquarters in Vienna and was part of the founding Hand in Hand, a humanitarian aid organization in India. Transitioning into entrepreneurship on Hawaiʻi Island, she co-founded several businesses, eventually striking out on her own with Divine Goods Hawai‘i and Vegan Aloha. In 2018, Alessandra co-founded the Hawai‘i Lava Flow Animal Rescue Network (HLFARN), a grassroots group that became the primary information hub for animal-related services during the Kīlauea eruption. After the eruption, HLFARN went on to rescue more than 400 cows from the shuttered Big Island Dairy. Alessandra is an active member of Animal Rights Hawai‘i and coordinates Big Island Veg Fest. Alessandra has a huge heart for animals and their people and is instrumental in coordinating community assistance and running the HAKA ‘Ohana Facebook group and now the Volcano Cat Sanctuary Facebook and Instagram pages. Alessandra’s intimate relationships with animal lovers, animal advocacy leaders, and animal organizations support the Volcano Cat Sanctuary's goal to aid spay and neuter efforts in our community, help educate about animal welfare and helping with the adoptions of rescued cats; a rewarding and compassionate way to give a cat a second chance at happiness. Helping to save a life, reduce overpopulation, and support animal welfare and providing people with companionship, entertainment, and joy.

  

• Sean Specht

  Caretaker

  Sean has been passionate about animals from a young age, spending much of his life working with and volunteering for their care. Throughout his childhood and into adulthood, he helped foster countless litters of kittens. After high school, Sean began his career as a care provider and quickly rose to operations manager at a canine care facility. During this time, he became actively involved in assisting local cat colonies through care and sterilization, driven by a strong commitment to controlling the wild feline population for the benefit of both the cats and the local wildlife. His extensive experience in trapping and handling feral cats has been invaluable in this effort." Having long harbored a dream of starting a cat sanctuary with his partner, Sean was thrilled to join Volcano Cat Sanctuary in their mission of addressing feline overpopulation in Puna through this vital resource.

  

• Rose Esteva

  Social Media Manager

  Rose is a long time animal lover, and animal caretaker, feeling kinship with all kinds of animals throughout their life, from the scaled to the winged to the four legged. They also have a life-long relationship of love and respect with natural ecologies, growing up backpacking in many of the different mountain and coastal regions of California, and spending summers on the wild lands of deep North Idaho. Every hike included a native plant and animal ID book. She has also been raised sitting in indigenous circles of wisdom, participating in sweat lodges since she was a small child, and being taught to treat all non-human beings with respect for their sovereignty. With an educational background in integrated studies, design, a master's degree in social work, and a lifelong relationship with all of the arts, Rose has worked in many different cultural contexts around the world, from Kibera, Kenya, to Chiapas Mexico, to East Oakland, California, where she lived for years. She has worked in crisis intervention with survivors of human trafficking and sexual assault, as a court appointed advocate for foster youth, as a curriculum consultant for cultural humility and trauma informed practice in social work, a consent educator, a clinical case worker, an educator, coach, and consultant on culturally relative and spiritually rooted practices in business, and a non-fiction writer on animist leadership. Upon moving to Hawaii, Rose founded a non-profit sanctuary with their partner, as well as a ceremonial cacao company, and runs several businesses as well as caring for approximately 40 rescue animals. Rose is honored to be able to support the animal rescue efforts of Volcano Cat Sanctuary, as one of the many hands needed to address the needs of the animals on the Big Island, both cats, and also the ecologies that are affected by them.