We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Andee Bingham. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Andee below.

Hi Andee, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Our mission is to save the most vulnerable kittens — the newborns, the critically ill, the injured, the ones no one else is equipped to help. But the heart of our mission is about more than rescue. It’s about compassion and giving second chances to those who’ve never had a first.

This mission is deeply personal. Before founding Esther Neonatal Kitten Alliance, I spent over a decade in animal rescue and repeatedly saw neonatal kittens turned away from shelters simply because caring for them required specialized, intensive support. These kittens — often just hours or days old — were being euthanized not because they couldn’t be saved, but because no one had the resources or training to do it.

So we stepped in.

We created Esther Neonatal Kitten Alliance to be a lifeline for these fragile lives. We’ve built a nursery and ICU where tiny kittens get around-the-clock care, and a community of fosters, volunteers, and supporters who believe in saving their lives — even (and especially) the janky, medically complex, or overlooked ones.

Andee, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Esther Neonatal Kitten Alliance is a nonprofit rescue based in Western North Carolina dedicated entirely to saving the tiniest, most fragile lives — newborn and critically ill or injured kittens. The work we do is unlike almost any other organization in the country.

I’ve been in animal rescue for over 15 years, but it wasn’t until I started working closely with shelters that I realized the heartbreaking truth: neonatal kittens are some of the most at-risk animals in the entire shelter system. They require intensive, around-the-clock care — every few hours, every single day — and most shelters simply don’t have the staffing, training, or resources to keep them alive.

Far too often, these tiny kittens were being euthanized on intake. Not because they couldn’t be saved — but because no one was equipped to do it.

I couldn’t stand by and let that happen.

So in 2019, I founded Esther Neonatal Kitten Alliance — named in honor of a special little kitten we loved and lost — to be the lifeline those babies desperately needed.

Esther Neonatal Kitten Alliance specializes in:

– 24/7 care for orphaned newborns, often just hours old
– Emergency medical stabilization for sick and injured kittens
– Foster training, mentoring, and support so community members can help save lives from home
– Education and consulting for shelters and rescues across the country looking to improve their kitten outcomes

While many organizations rescue kittens, very few focus solely on the newborn and sick ones. About 80% of the kittens we rescue are under five weeks old, and many arrive injured, critically ill, or rejected by their mothers. These are kittens who may require tube feedings, incubators, oxygen support, medications, physical therapy, and more.

And yet — despite this incredibly fragile population — we maintain an 80–85% save rate year after year.

What sets us apart isn’t just our medical knowledge. It’s our relentless belief that every kitten deserves a fighting chance, even the ones who are wobbly, cleft-lipped, or born with a limb that doesn’t quite work. We love the janky ones. The ones most people overlook. And we’ve created a whole system to help them not just survive — but thrive.

– We’ve saved the lives of over 1,800 kittens since we opened our doors.
– Our team has helped shelters across the Southeast improve their kitten survival rates through hands-on support, education, and crisis intervention.
– And perhaps most meaningfully — we’ve never turned away a kitten just because their needs were too great. We’ve had kittens arrive with maggot-infested wounds, severe anemia, twisted legs, or congenital defects that required complex surgeries. They stay with us as long as they need — and we celebrate like crazy when they find their forever homes.

We are small but mighty. We are fierce in our compassion. And we are building a world where every kitten, no matter how vulnerable, is treated like they matter.

Learn more, get involved, or donate at:
www.kittenalliance.org
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @kittenalliance
Join our monthly giving program — the Last Chance Lifeline Coalition — and help us say yes to the next tiny life in need. www.kittenalliance.org/lifeline

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

There are a lot of stories I could tell that show the resilience of our team, but one stands out in particular — a time when we were tested not just emotionally or financially, but physically, too.

In the fall of 2024, Hurricane Helene tore through our region of North Carolina. Roads were flooded, power was out, and communication lines were down. But inside our kitten nursery, life didn’t stop — it couldn’t.

We had more than a dozen medically fragile kittens in our care at the time, many of them in incubators or needing oxygen. Two of them, Sunshine and Breezy, were actually born during the hurricane. Their mother, tragically, was swept away in floodwaters just hours after giving birth.

With the power grid down, we had no choice but to rely on a donated generator to keep our lifesaving equipment running. We rationed fuel, took shifts through the night, and hand-fed every kitten with lanterns and headlamps. For several days, we operated in disaster-response mode — managing emergency intakes of kittens found outside after the storm, stabilizing kittens with limited supplies, and staying in close contact with other organizations doing the same.

It was exhausting. It was emotional. And it was one of the most incredible things we’ve ever pulled off.

The couple of weeks after the hurricane reminded me why we do what we do — and how deeply committed our entire team is to never giving up, no matter how hard things get.

Because when you’re in the business of giving second chances to the most fragile lives… resilience isn’t optional. It’s everything.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

What’s helped Esther Neonatal Kitten Alliance build a strong reputation in our field is, quite simply, our willingness to say yes when others say no — and to back that up with extraordinary care, transparency, and results.

We’ve carved out a reputation for being the organization that steps up for the kittens no one else is equipped to help:

– The 3-day-old orphaned bottle baby with pneumonia
– The kitten found in a dumpster with maggot-infested wounds
– The cleft-palate kitten who needs tube feeding for weeks just to survive

That kind of commitment gets noticed — not just by our supporters, but by shelters, rescues, vets, and communities across the Southeast. Organizations know that if they reach out to us, we’ll respond with compassion and clarity, even when the case is complicated or resources are tight.

But what’s really built trust is our follow-through.
We don’t just say we save fragile kittens — we show the process, we explain the care, we celebrate the wins, and we are honest when the outcome is hard. We don’t sugarcoat the realities of neonate care. Instead, we invite people into it. And that’s powerful.

We’ve also invested in educating others — training fosters, supporting shelters in crisis, and providing free resources online. That generosity of knowledge, paired with our deeply mission-driven identity, has helped establish us as both a trusted resource and a compassionate leader in neonatal rescue.

In the end, I think our reputation was built the same way trust is built with a kitten:
Consistently showing up. Offering care without conditions.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kittenalliance.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kittenalliance
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kittenalliance

Image Credits

Esther Neonatal Kitten Alliance