Forget the Easter bunny, cat Spritzer has ex-shelled herself
ARESCUE cat has helped collect more than 1,000 Easter Eggs for patients and staff at a hospital.
Heléna Abrahams, who grew up in Bamford, Rochdale, and her black and white cat Spritzer, have become friendly familiar faces over the years with the Rochdale and Bury community.
Every year 11-year-old Spritzer help to collect chocolate eggs for her friends at the mental health unit at Fairfield Hospital where she regularly hangs out.
Heléna, who moved to Bury at the age of eight, said: “We are all about making people smile and we wanted to give back.
“She has become a therapy cat and patients love her.
“To see the smiles on their faces is special and emotional.
“The response was incredible and staff were so grateful.”
For several years, Heléna, 51, and Spritzer have collected Easter Eggs for the hospital with several supermarkets including Morrisons in Heywood and Tesco in Bury putting out large crates for members of the public to donate Easter Eggs for ‘Spritzer’s Easter Egg Challenge’.
Last week, it was discovered that someone had stolen donations from the Bury Tesco, under the guise of being with the campaign.
Helena said the police are involved and are looking at CCTV footage.
The news spread across Rochdale and Bury and more than 70 chocolate eggs were donated overnight by local residents to replace those stolen.
A first delivery of Easter eggs was made to the mental health ward on Saturday, April 9.
The rest of the eggs were delivered on April 12 by Spritzer, Heléna and Bury
MP James Daly. The popular feline documents her adventures on social media and children with illnesses and disabilities have taken photos with the much-loved blogging cat by their bedside.
The former Thornbury Rochdale Nursery pupil said: “Spritzer is a firey diva and she knows who she is and makes sure she plays on it!
“Her blogs are funny and when people say they were having a bad day but Spritzer made them smile that is enough for me.”
Heléna is also the founder of the ‘Gizmo’s Legacy’ campaign which aims to make it a legal requirement for all Local Authorities to scan a microchip of a deceased cat in order to return it to the registered owner before it is either cremated or placed on landfill.
It will also ask for all local authorities to notify ‘Deceased Cats UK’ when a deceased cat is discovered without a chip in order for them to reunite them with their owners.
The campaign began five years ago after Heléna’s cat, Gizmo, was hit by a car and disposed of, with no attempts made to notify her.