Nonprofit restaurant opens sustaining member campaign

FORT COLLINS — FoCo Cafe, Northern Colorado’s only nonprofit restaurant, kicks off its first “Faces of FoCo Cafe” membership drive on June 3. The campaign, which will run through June 30, will focus on growing the cafe’s membership base. The unique “pay-what-you-can” restaurant offers a lunch menu of a variety of salads, soups and breads made from locally-grown and sourced ingredients from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday,

“Sustaining members are key to the FoCo Cafe’s continued existence,” Mallory Garneau, executive director, said in a written statement. “The FoCo Cafe is built by the community, and for the community, and we are taking this time to ask our community to act by making a monthly commitment.” The lunch service revenue covers only about half of the operating budget of the cafe, “so the continued and stable support of sustaining members makes all the difference in the world to our longevity.”

The restaurant is encouraging donors to commit to $10 a month to support FoCo Cafe’s mission of “Feeding Our Community Ourselves regardless of one’s ability to pay.” Members receive perks for each level of membership based on a monthly donation including free meal tokens that can be used by the member or passed on to others.

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FoCo Cafe came close to shutting its doors last fall when it faced a rise in the number of meals served and a decrease in the average meal donation. The cafe was able to continue operations after hundreds of public supporters stepped up by becoming sustaining members and two anonymous donors contributed $10,000 each. The current campaign’s goal is to add 80 more members to the current 120 for an even 200 members for 2019.

“We supplement our meal donation income with grants, food donations and other various giving programs, but it is easy to see why the cafe’s continued existence relies on the predictable income of sustaining member support,” said Garneau. “We would love to see our sustaining members dine with us at the cafe, but we also know there are a lot of people who just want to support the cafe’s mission of a hand up, not a handout, whether they are able to eat with us or not,” she said.

FoCo Cafe also offers a Kids Feeding Kids summer breakfast program and five outdoor community resources: the FoCo Freedge, the Hydration Station, the Kindness Cupboard, the Little Outdoor Library and The Giving Tree.

To sign up as a sustaining member or to learn more about FoCo Cafe, go to www.fococafe.org, email Info@fococafe.org or call 309-368-1659. All donations are tax deductible.