If there’s one thing Brooke Conway Kleven loves more than coffee, it’s her pups, which she adopted from the Vegas Pet Rescue Project (VPRP). Peering away from the camera during our interview, Kleven gets up to check on them. “Sorry about that,” she says, coming back and taking a sip of coffee. “The newest puppy is turning into best friends with our next oldest, so the two of them won’t stop playing, which is probably a good thing, but not when I’m trying to talk.”
Kleven adopted her dog Zola from VPRP last year. She recently fostered another dog, Milo, for the rescue.
“The reason we stick with them is because of what they do. And what they show on social media is actually what they do in reality,” Kleven says, “which is not always the case.” When Zola had canine parvovirus and puppy strangles, a skin disease, the rescue gave the Kleven family all the help they requested, she adds.
You might not spot the connection between Kleven’s coffee and her dogs. But there is one.
Founders Coffee runs a community charity program, donating to a chosen non-profit a dollar from each drink of the month it sells. In November 2023, it chose VPRP. Each month, the coffee shop sponsors and features a different dog for adoption.
For the drink of the month, Founders Coffee partner Bronwen Nikora says, they craft a unique coffee, tea, or lemonade drink that offers customers something new and, hopefully, delightful.
While there are dozens of coffee shops in Southern Nevada, some of which are chain-store locations sneaking in from other states, Nikora says residents are becoming choosier when it comes to parting with their money. “I think you see a big movement nowadays where people are kind of leaning away from these national brands and (are) looking to spend their dollars more to the locally owned businesses,” she says. “That’s what we look forward to being here, to give the community a place to support that is local.”
Founders Coffee launched its charity program several years ago. Originally, it supported a different organization every month, but it evolved to target one cause per year to maximize giving. “Some months we might miss, and (the nonprofit) might only see less than $100 coming to them because the drink wasn’t popular,” Nikora says, “but maybe the next month, we really hit it perfectly and everybody wants that drink and it just sells and sells.”
Tina Hayes, a VPRP volunteer, says she hasn’t noticed an uptick in fostering through the collaboration, but she has seen an increase in foot traffic to their adoption events. “When we do an adoption event, people say, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re the rescue we heard about, so we wanted to come and see who you had available,’” Hayes says. “Who knows — from that, it could spring into an adoption or to a foster.”
Founded in 2017, VPRP takes in owner-surrendered pets and assists local animal shelters by rescuing dogs, cats, and pigs that have a limited chance of being adopted. At VPRP, people interested in pets can either foster or adopt. With adoption, pet parents get a two-week trial with the animal to determine whether there’s a mutual fit.
Hayes joined the rescue in the spring of 2018; you might have seen her in the local media highlighting animals for adoption. She also transports animals to the vet, handles adoption paperwork, and ensures foster families have pet medication, bedding, and food.
VPRP’s goal is to work with the community and Metro to crack down on the backyard breeders, Hayes says, because they contribute to animal neglect, abuse, and an increase in abandoned animals in the community.
At Founders Coffee, the goal is more modest: helping pets find their forever home. Nikora says that when customers order the drink of the month, “they feel like they’ve got their coffee, and they’ve supported the community for that day and given back while indulging in their coffee habits."