Every coffee we sell sends half of one percent to Tomato Club Rescue, a 501(c)(3) in Louisiana that runs the only orphan neonatal kitten rescue in the state. The cats they take in are the ones nobody else takes — kittens too young to eat on their own, kittens with medical issues, kittens that need round-the-clock bottle feeding for weeks before they’re stable enough to find homes.

Half of one percent doesn’t sound like much. On a single $5.50 latte it’s about two and three-quarter cents. But coffee is volume — by the end of a full year of operation, the half-percent rounds up to something that pays for what the rescue actually needs.

This isn’t a marketing program. We don’t put “support local!” on a sandwich board and call it done. There’s a specific 501(c)(3), with a website, with a public board, with an EIN. The donations flow through Shopify reports and into a check at the end of each quarter. You can verify all of it.

Neonatal kitten rescue is the part of animal welfare that almost nobody funds. Municipal shelters in Louisiana, like in most states, don’t have the staffing to bottle-feed kittens under four weeks old. A bottle-feeder kitten needs to eat every two hours, around the clock, for the first ten days of life. That’s not a thing a shelter on a budget can do. So historically, those kittens were euthanized at intake.

Tomato Club Rescue exists to interrupt that pattern. They take the youngest and most fragile kittens out of the shelter system, foster them through their first weeks, and place them for adoption once they’re past the critical window. They were founded in 2021 — the first orphan neonatal kitten rescue in Louisiana.

They’re entirely donation-reliant. No municipal funding, no franchise umbrella, no grant program in the wings. The model only works if enough people give them enough money to keep going. Which is where the half-percent comes from.

The money goes to the shelter. They spend it where they need to. We don’t tell them how to do their job — they know what their kittens need this week. We’re a coffee shop. They take in the money, they take in the kittens, they do the work.

You can also donate directly. We’re not the only way to support Tomato Club Rescue — we’re a way to support them while also drinking a latte. If our half-percent is something you can match or exceed yourself, do that too.

Most “we support local” claims at cafés are vague — a percentage of something, going to something local, sometimes. The numbers don’t show up. The 501(c)(3) doesn’t get named. There’s no way for a customer to verify any of it.

We’re trying to do the opposite of that. The amount is exact. The recipient has a name and a website. The donation is structured into our point of sale, not a manual end-of-month gesture. If you ever want to know what your latte funded, ask. We’ll show you the Shopify report.

We’re at 2940 Canal Street in Mid-City. Open daily, 8 AM to 6 PM. Order whatever you want from the menu — every drink contributes. Sit for a while. There are kittens somewhere in Louisiana right now who don’t know you helped, and they don’t need to. The point isn’t the credit, it’s that the support keeps coming.