Animal rescue has been woven into Kompoocha since the beginning.

Before we had a tasting room, before we had a café, and before most people knew who we were, we knew we wanted this business to stand for something bigger than kombucha.

In 2021, we saw a warning that nearly 40 dogs at a local shelter had only hours left before a mass euthanasia. One of those dogs was Leo, then known as Chai. A rescue in Northern California had offered to take him, but he needed a ride.

So we commented, “We’ll do it.”

The next day, we drove nine hours to help get Leo to safety. Somewhere along that drive, we fell completely in love with him which made it even harder to understand how close he had come to losing his life simply because the shelter needed space.

Leo survived. All 39 dogs that day survived.

But that is not always how these stories end.

Dogs and cats lose their lives every day in overcrowded shelters, often through no fault of their own. Kompoocha exists, in part, to keep telling those stories, supporting the people doing the work, and helping more animals make it out alive.