Warning: This story could be traumatizing to some people.
This is a story of an incident from my youth that shook me to my core. It is the kind of foundational story that affected me enough, that it became one of my main causes and a major influence on me when choosing what our company https://lovingbrewcoffee.com would stand for as we began to operate.
I lived in a working class neighborhood when I was young. I had a couple of close friends that I hung out with daily. These were guys that I did almost everything with and I went through my "firsts" with. I kind of knew their families and they kind of knew mine. Mostly, the parents just worked and complained about how much we cost them. Like I said, working class.
Like most working class families, many in my hood had a side hustle. I think someone was an Amway rep because we had a box of it in the garage. My dad rebuilt cars and traded them so there was usually oil leaks in the driveway. A family down the street raised cats, so every spring, we had cute kittens to visit and play with until they all got sold.
This is where I lean into my story. One spring came, and the cat raising family had a new batch of kittens. We were still young enough to get real excited about the prospect of playing with the cute little kitties and we started counting the days until they were old enough to be handled.
At about six weeks, we started hanging around the cat raisers house. Hinting around about the kittens when the families mother was out in her yard, but this year we got shut down. She said they didn't have any kittens this spring, but how was that? We knew different. Mamma cat was growing babies in here belly just like every spring.
Anyway, the next day in school, I heard the tale that destroyed my relationship with everyone in the cat raisers family. The son was talking with his friends about how the cats were born with an illness and that his dad had to get rid of them. He was so proud, boasting that his father had taken all the kittens and put them in a plastic lawn bag with some rocks. Took them to the canal and launched them "as far as he could". Hearing this broke me in two.
As a young boy, all I could envision was those poor, scared kittens. The horrors of taking them from their mother. What could be so bad that they needed to die. And even at my age, I knew there were much better ways to handle the kitten problem. As an adult, I realize there is a cost associated with euthanization so they handled it in a way that didn't cost money, but it left a little boy traumatised and I'd never forget what they did that spring day.
This is what our fight is about. Alternatives to euthanization. A living, loving, sentient animal deserves what ever life they have and there are people that would be willing to take the time and share their lives. We just need to give these animals time so a suitable home can be found. This costs money and there are programs that do exactly that. The problem with most no kill facilities is, to keep their no kill status, they simply won't accept the financial burden of "hard to place" animals. We only work with no kill facilities that will help any animal, or have an alternative solution to euthanizing.
Our web site is https://lovingbrewcoffee.com. We need to find affiliates that can help us get the word out. Our affiliate link is https://lovingbrewcoffee.goaffpro.com.
Thank you and much love ❤️!
Thomas