How I Accidentally Became a Rat Rescue’s Tech Department
Fun fact about me: I know a lot about rats. I know, seems random for a developer! That wasn’t always the case though. At the time this story takes place, I genuinely thought they were dirty, bitey little creatures. I was scared of them! So how did I end up building a website for a nonprofit that rescues them? Good question. I’m still not entirely sure myself.
Small World, Wide Web
Back in early 2024, I was pretty active on Twitch. Mostly moderating for a friend’s stream. One day, at the end of her stream, she raided another channel. Depending on what corner of the internet you’re from, a raid can either sound very good or very bad. On Twitch, it’s a good thing! It’s a way to send your entire community to another streamer’s channel when you’re done streaming.
I looked at the name of the streamer we just raided and couldn’t believe it. I’d been seeing their TikToks pop up on my feed for a while, but I had no idea they were streaming too.
So there I was, watching them struggle through Undertale. And I mean struggle. The chat wasn’t helping either, backseat gaming was rampant and the mods were overwhelmed. I pitched in by answering questions in chat when I could, even though I was just a viewer. At one point, they got really stuck on something small they just happened to not notice. Telling them in chat would’ve been backseating, so instead I reached out to one of their mods privately and suggested they give the streamer a nudge. They appreciated the approach, and off the stream went.
That little interaction was my first real connection with anyone in that community. When the stream ended, everyone was invited to the Discord server, and, well, you know me. I love a good Discord server. So I joined, noticed a voicechat going on, and hopped in to listen. I like to take the temperature before I intervene in a voicechat. There’s always a vibe already going on and I’d rather understand it so I can ride with it than accidentally ruin it.
One of the mods in that voicechat caught my attention. They were talking about how the viewership on their own Twitch channel was lowering and felt pretty discouraged about it. That’s a pretty common thing on Twitch, and it always sucks. I felt for them, so I looked up their channel and followed. That mod was Aethersya. And their channel was about a nonprofit called Larkencielle.
The Helpful Stranger Pipeline
I started watching Aethersya’s streams and quickly joined their Discord server. We started chatting, and as we did, I naturally gravitated towards helping out. Discord permissions that needed fixing? On it. Twitch tools that needed configuring? Sure, I’ll take a look. Stream alerts that could be automated? Say no more.
It wasn’t a conscious decision to become anyone’s tech person. It’s just what happens when I see something that could be better and I know how to make it better. One fix leads to another, and before you know it, you’re the person people come to when something breaks.
I quickly learned that Larkencielle was a full-on French nonprofit dedicated to rescuing domestic rats. A registered association, running since 2018. My reaction was immediate: starry eyes, mouth open, “that’s AMAZING.”
Which is ironic, considering I was pretty scared of rats at the time.
Lost at Site
At some point, I took a look at the website. And, well, I have this habit of checking what any website is made with as soon as I open it. The layout had that unmistakable WordPress feel, so I tried /wp-admin. Sure enough. Aethersya was a bit baffled. “Wha… How did you know?!”
It was a WordPress.com site with a pretty small plan, surprisingly affordable. The tradeoff was limited freedom, but they didn’t seem too bothered by that. Fair enough! No need to overcomplicate something that just works.
Except… did it work?
Aethersya kept mentioning they didn’t like the design. At first, I brushed it off. It was functional, it wasn’t ugly, it was fine! But the more I looked at it, the more I started seeing the cracks. Two main navigations, each with submenus. A sidebar full of either useless or duplicated widgets. And infinite scrolling. I have beef with infinite scrolling. Extra super duper beef when a website has both infinite scrolling AND useful stuff in the footer. You can never reach the footer! What’s even the point of putting things there?!
For a tech-savvy person, sure, you could find your way around. But Larkencielle’s audience is rat lovers, and rat lovers are not exactly… tech-savvy. More like needs-to-be-saved-from-tech. Get it? Because savvy and saving… Aaaaanyways! People who wanted to adopt, donate, or just learn about rat care had to fight the website to find what they were looking for. That’s not functional. That’s a problem.
Ready, Set, …Wait
So I did something I never thought I’d do: I offered to redesign the website myself.
See, design has always been my weak spot. I can build just about anything and make it look awesome, as long as someone else came up with the design. Implementing a mockup? No problem. But inventing the design from scratch? That, I’m very bad at.
And yet, for some reason, I felt confident. I remembered my classes about design and architecture. I knew what questions to ask, in what order, how to draft a structure, and I knew Figma would be a great tool for this. For the first time, I felt like I could actually pull off a design. I just needed one thing from Aethersya: the architecture of the website. Not the current one, but the ideal one. What sections should exist, what goes where, how things connect.
When I asked, their response was more or less “Uh? Ooooh… Eeeeeeeh…….” But I wasn’t worried! They just needed some time to think about it.
Days passed. Then weeks. Then months. And they didn’t seem any more confident that they could do it. Slowly, my own confidence started to run thin. And eventually, it vanished. The redesign didn’t happen. The website stayed exactly as it was.
Blocksy to the Rescue
Months later, I was researching WordPress themes for a completely different project. In my search, I stumbled upon Blocksy and its collection of starter sites. Starter sites are basically full website templates designed by professionals: clean architecture, beautiful design, all the sections you’d need, ready to go. You just replace the generic content with your own.
I wasn’t even thinking about Larkencielle at that point. But as I was browsing through the starter sites, I noticed one made for charities. And something clicked.
Clear sections. Logical navigation. A design that actually guided visitors instead of losing them. I started replacing the generic content with Larkencielle’s. And the more I did, the more it felt right. It was working so well that I got genuinely excited, something I hadn’t felt about this project in a while.
When I was done, I showed Aethersya. They loved it. Like, loved loved it. So I asked if it was okay to transfer the website to my own server right away. They said yes, and just like that, Larkencielle moved from WordPress.com to a self-hosted WordPress.
Brand new design, clear architecture, and professional email addresses to match. No more @gmail.com! But the most exciting part of moving to a self-hosted WordPress wasn’t the fresh coat of paint. It was what it made possible. Custom plugins.
See, on WordPress.com, you’re limited to what they offer you. On a self-hosted WordPress, the sky’s the limit. Well, your VPS specs are the limit. But you get the idea.
And I had already been listening to Aethersya’s pain points for months. The paper adoption contracts. The adoption posts that had to be manually published on multiple platforms. The animal tracking that lived nowhere organized. Every single one of those was a problem I could now solve with code.
But those are stories for another time.
