A therapy animal and Instagram star. A customer greeter who has been called the laziest employee on staff. Global Neighborhood Thrift & Vintage’s resident cat Smudge has many roles. For nearly all of his three years the green-eyed gray and white feline with a smudge of gray on his left cheek has been living a comfortable life at the local nonprofit’s Logan neighborhood warehouse & store. Beloved by staff and shoppers Smudge is definitely a local celebrity cat.
Many of the staff members are refugees hired through the organization’s job readiness program. Born on International Cat Day on August 8 to a street cat mother in the South Perry District Smudge and his littermates caught the attention of Julie Kimball-Bryant. She is Global’s director of social enterprise & programs and a friend of the family who took the kittens in.
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Smudge and his brother Stripe became the official store & warehouse cats at Global in fall 2022 after they grew old enough. Stripe later died from an illness. The cats were supposed to help scare away rodents and Kimball-Bryant says Stripe was better at that job.
But the cats also made everyone at work happier. Kimball-Bryant explains that bringing the cats to work showed how animals connect people everywhere. Many employees had pets at home but could not bring them to the office. Sometimes the team plays games about cats from different cultures. They ask each other how people call cats in various languages or what sounds cats make in other countries because these things vary across cultures.
When Smudge is not sleeping on piles of donated textiles being sorted in the large warehouse connected to Global’s thrift and vintage shop off Hamilton Street he can usually be found on the sales floor claiming a sofa or armchair in the furniture section. During morning hours while staff complete their opening tasks he often sits on the front counter near the entrance. If he is not taking his usual midday nap shoppers might see him running under clothing racks as he moves around the store. Kimball-Bryant explains that some customers have mistaken him for a decorative glass cat & the staff has to tell them he is a real living animal. He is well loved by everyone and wears a tag that reads “Not for Sale” because people have actually asked to buy him. In mid-2024 Global’s program manager Ani Peirson created an illustration of Smudge’s face with the words “not for sale” written below it for a set of special stickers sold at the front counter. These stickers have become very popular with customers.
Peirson describes Smudge as a unifier. “Even the grumpiest of employees here are like ‘Oh Smudge oh!'” she says. “I think it’s the same for customers. I think it’s fun to have a living creature to care about in a place where you could just be like head down I have to get this project done. And you can always take a quick pause when there’s a cat around.”
“He’s a nice reminder to slow down” Kimball-Bryant adds. “Take a break. Pet the cat. Have a cup of tea.”
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While there’s an entire cat care team tasked with overseeing Smudge Kimball-Bryant suspects his favorite person is a textile grader named Dan who also happens to feed the cat each morning.
She notes that while Smudge has wandered outside his warehouse home once before in a three-day departure that made everyone worry he since hasn’t shown any interest in going past the building’s many doors.
“Really he is fully one of our team” she says. “We’re a very tight close group of people. We take care of each other and watch out for each other and Smudge is I think everybody’s friend.”
Sometimes the perfect cat-appropriate item is even donated by a community member. Like a faux fur pillow that Smudge is curled up on at the end of one of the textile bins while an employee next to him sorts through clothing and other goods. The staff have made sure to tell each other that under no circumstances should this particular pillow be moved because it’s Smudge’s current favorite naptime spot.
“The community loves this cat as much as we do” Kimball-Bryant says.
