Azyl u Myšky o.z. – Web Presentation

This is a clean, static web application built for Azyl u Myšky o.z., a non-profit shelter in Slovakia that rescues, rehabilitates, and provides a sanctuary for abandoned and severely disabled cats.

The Story Behind the Project

This project is deeply personal. It started when I came across a post about a tiny kitten in my hometown. The kitten had been run over by a car, his hind legs were completely paralyzed, and he was scheduled to be euthanized. The local shelter gave him a 48-hour window to see if anyone would step forward. Nobody did.

Right before the clock ran out, the lady who runs Azyl u Myšky drove two hours through the night to pick him up, taking on the massive medical and financial responsibility to save his life.

Being from that same hometown and a lifelong cat lover, I felt a personal connection to this kitten's survival. Since then, I have been supporting the shelter, and I offered to build this web platform pro bono to help give her work the visibility it deserves.

Project Purpose

The shelter currently operates entirely via social media, which limits its reach and sustainability. This website serves two main purposes:

1. Public Awareness: Providing a central, easily shareable place where people can see the active residents, read their stories, and find direct contact information.
2. Corporate Validation: Having an official, independent web presence is a strict legal requirement to nominate the shelter into corporate donation matching programs. Launching this site allows the shelter to unlock matched funding from tech companies and access corporate grant budgets.

Tech Stack & Architecture

The project was designed with a focus on zero hosting costs, high security and blistering loading speeds.

• React (v19) – Component-driven approach for a clean, maintainable UI structure.
• Vite – A modern, lightning-fast build tool replacing legacy bundlers.
• Tailwind CSS (v4) – Leveraging the latest version of the utility-first framework for rapid responsive design without code bloat.
• Static Hosting – A pure frontend application with no backend or database overhead, perfectly tailored for free edge-hosting (Netlify, GitHub Pages, or Vercel).

Local Development Setup

To run this project locally, ensure you have Node.js installed.

Clone the repository:

git clone git@github.com:ndavidova/cat-asylum-web.git
cd cat-asylum-web

Install dependencies:

npm install

Start the local development server (Vite HMR):

npm run dev

The application will be live at http://localhost:5173/.

To generate optimized, minified static HTML/CSS/JS files ready for deployment:

npm run build