These days it seems there’s no escape from the bad economic news. Jobless rates are up. Manufacturing is down. Trying to sell your house? Forget about it.
That’s why we were so taken with the charming story out of Fort Collins in which the local community saved a little coffee shop.
That Catalyst Coffee will go on brewing espresso is unlikely to make much of a dent in Larimer County’s economic indicators.
But it surely was an encouraging measure of the power of the human spirit when everything looks impossibly bleak.
Catalyst, it seems, is as much about coffee as it is about its owner, who has the eclectic name of Fade Wall.
When the economy tanked this fall, Wall saw sales drop off to an alarming degree. Before long, she found she couldn’t pay her shop’s rent or settle up with vendors.
Reluctantly, she made plans to close and told customers and employees. It broke her heart. The coffee shop had been her dream. Wall expected business would drop off, but instead, the shop did record sales.
Catalyst’s customers refused to let the store die. They held fundraisers and collected donations.
The way her customers rallied around Wall reminds us, a little, of how neighbors and friends looked out for one another during the Great Depression, sharing food, clothes and coal. Of course, despite what you might hear on some cable shows, times are not nearly as desperate as they were in the 1930s. But it’s undeniable that people are suffering as a result of this recession.
To see a community extend a helping hand to a friend in need is uplifting, and a welcome break in the doom and gloom.
