"Scooping poop makes a difference." It's 8:45 on a Monday morning, and Daniela Iancu, an adoption counselor with the Cat Adoption Team, is busy beyond poop-scoopingrefilling water dishes and depositing cardboard cartons filled with cat kibbles in each cage. It's unglamorous, but something about this place in Washington County keeps Iancu, a petite, well-spoken, poised 25-year-old, committed and enthusiastic. "The energy just rubs off on you here," she says. Iancu had not even owned a cat until she answered an online plea from CAT for volunteers two years ago. She had graduated from George Fox University and felt unsure about how to get started on a career. So she signed on, helping where needed and becoming a counselor who learned to match cats with families. Her commitment was irreplaceable, and the shelter soon hired her as a paid staff member. As an adoption counselor, Iancu pairs young children with their first kittens, introduces a lap cat to an elderly woman craving companionship, finds homes for the old cats, the paralyzed ones, the ones who wouldn't stand a chance in another shelter. She finds a family for each cat, and gets misty-eyed when they leave. Though she's the youngest on the 12-person staff, Iancu carries herself like a veteran. Volunteers twice her age stop her with questions. She rattles off statistics about stray cats in Oregon, why she thinks cat overpopulation can be fixed and how much volunteers are needed. She calmly discusses a stray kitten with the 7-year-old team's founder, Evan Kalik. And it's not even 10 am. But the cats Iancu cares for don't care about any of that. Each tries to jump out of its cage as she changes each food and litter boxnot onto the floor, but into her busy hands. A large white tabby, whose cage is labeled with a hands-scrawled "I'm a Grumpy Boy" sign, rubs against her. Cooing at each cat during her morning rounds, Iancu pauses by a cage with an IV bag where a large yellowing white cats sit inside, a large growth almost completely obstructing its left eye. The cat isn't cute, nor does she seem to be particularly friendlybut Moxie is Iancu's favorite of the 500-some cats that call the no-kill shelter home. The cat, which receives an IV drip because of suspected kidney falure, seems grateful as she purrs and nestles into Iancu's bosom. "Where else can you go where you can pet kitties and hold cats and saves lifes?" she asks.