{"id":39758,"date":"2023-12-03T18:25:18","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T23:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=39758"},"modified":"2023-12-03T18:26:22","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T23:26:22","slug":"kitty-cat-lounge-is-making-a-difference-in-our-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/12\/03\/kitty-cat-lounge-is-making-a-difference-in-our-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Kitty Cat Lounge is making a difference in our community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kitty Cat Lounge is located at 946 E Orange St., in Downtown Lakeland. This local business has incorporated the cozy and inviting atmosphere of a local coffee shop, with a clean and stress-relieving space to play with cats!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n        \n        <div class=\"embedpress-gutenberg-wrapper source-provider-Youtube aligncenter ep-clear   ep-content-protection-disabled inline\" id=\"8aeda707-c1f2-468a-84b7-1f7b46f90b05\" data-embed-type=\"Youtube \">\n            <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper \">\n                <div id=\"ep-gutenberg-content-f43e7b376e6c5832d2435165a910b81e\" class=\"ep-gutenberg-content\">\n                    <div >\n                        <div class=\"ep-embed-content-wraper preset-default insta-grid ep-google-photos-carousel\"\n                            style=\"max-width:600px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\"                                                                                                                >\n\n                            <div class=\"ose-youtube ose-uid-cfb733c95c68c7444f5a2f82cbe0f16a ose-embedpress-responsive\" style=\"width:600px; height:340px; max-height:340px; max-width:100%; display:inline-block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" title=\"Kitty Cat Lounge located at 946 E Orange St., in Downtown Lakeland\" width=\"600\" height=\"340\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dqTk0BDBepA?feature=oembed&#038;color=red&#038;rel=1&#038;controls=2&#038;start=true&#038;end=true&#038;fs=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; encrypted-media;accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;gyroscope;picture-in-picture clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen title=\"Kitty Cat Lounge is making a difference in our community\"><\/iframe><\/div>                        <\/div>\n\n                                            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    \n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The owner of Kitty Cat Lounge, Cindy Skop noticed a big problem in her community and set out to make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI used to be a photojournalist\u2026I worked for the Ledger and many times\u2026 we did stories on folks who were either helping with homeless kitties or the colonies,\u201d said Skop.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Skop said there are many homeless cats and colonies around Polk County that may not have a chance at life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI knew once I started doing more research, that Polk County was number one for euthanasia in the Southeast,\u201d said Skop.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After the&nbsp;passing of her father, Skop inherited&nbsp;money and&nbsp;decided&nbsp;that she needed to do something \u201cgood.\u201d Helping to solve the problems associated with homeless and overly euthanized cats was her mission.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cKitty Cat Lounge offers this space where people can come and feel comfortable, not just for the cats but they can work on puzzles, they can read a book, they can play games,\u201d said Skop.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As soon as you walk into this quaint facility, you first feel like you are walking into a familiar&nbsp;living room which adds to the cozy and inviting atmosphere throughout the space.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Beautiful pieces from local artists line the walls, which Skop says are for sale and all the proceeds go right back to the artists.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Along with local art, you will find coffee provided by Lakeland\u2019s own Ethos Coffee Roasters, bagels and croissants from Honeycomb Bread Bakers&nbsp;baked fresh for their sandwich offerings, delicious cheesecakes from 3j\u2019s Sweet Treats and many other food and beverage options all provided by local community partners.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt was important to me to be downtown, to be hyperlocal and to become an integral part of the town that I care about,\u201d said Skop<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The local partnerships don\u2019t stop there\u2026Kitty Cat Lounge only houses Polk County cats due to the need in the\u00a0community. Skop utilizes the help of Saving Paws Rescue of Florida Inc. (which only operates within Polk County) to save the lives of as many local cats as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kitty Cat Lounge is the fact that they want everyone to be involved and experience what they have to offer. Skop said that there is no target customer.\u00a0Even for people who may be allergic to cats or need some time to warm up to letting them jump in your lap, they can rest easy knowing that\u00a0the cat room is separate from the from the coffee shop area and uses\u00a0its own ventilation unit.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, before you finish checking off all the boxes on your shopping list, consider grabbing a gift card to the Kitty Cat Lounge, a beautiful piece of local artwork, or give one of their cats the gift of a new forever home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For more information visit:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/Kittycatlounge.com\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"Kittycatlounge.com\">Kittycatlounge.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kitty Cat Lounge is located at 946 E Orange St., in Downtown Lakeland. This local business has incorporated the cozy and inviting atmosphere of a local coffee shop, with a&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[6940],"class_list":["post-39758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-kitty-cat-lounge-is-making-a-difference-in-our-community"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39758"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39762,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39758\/revisions\/39762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}