Happy Homebrewer Post-Fire Rebuild!
Donation protected
We are the Happy Homebrewer, a small, family-owned business in Colwood, one of the communities of Greater Victoria B.C.
Under the very experienced, skilled and enthusiastic expertise of the owner, Duncan Blackman, Happy Homebrewer makes wine, beer, and cider on premise for customers. Duncan also helps kindle similar excitement for anyone looking to embark on this wonderful hobby, providing supplies, ingredients, and as much fermentation knowledge as you want--or can handle-- per visit.
Our family has poured everything we have (and more) into the store, and have watched it grow into an amazing community of customers and friends; however, we have also seen a share of hardships. While this is par for the course for a small business, this year in particular seems to be hitting us rather hard. In January, we had a break-in that forced us to close for a few days, losing revenue while repairing our space and replacing losses. Once we had recovered from that incident, we had the misfortune to have an old radio cause an electric fire in our production space. We are hugely grateful that it happened after business hours and nobody was hurt, but the damage is extensive. Smoke and fumes have rendered our inventory of supplies and ingredients unusable, and while the fire was contained, it destroyed our fermentation room and ruined all of the wine, beer, and cider batches already in the fermentation process-- or worse, ready to bottle but not yet taken home.
We have insurance, of course, but are watching the recovery costs grow exponentially just 24 hours after the fire and are quite worried about the overall level of repair and reconstruction required to reopen our doors. Happy Homebrewer needs to be closed for a few weeks, and will have to wait for the insurance payment to arrive while addressing the invoices, bills, and expenses we would otherwise be managing with our regular cash flow.
Thus, we are forced to humbly seek assistance from our community, and from the social network at large. We are asking for your help to guarantee that we have enough capital to reopen our doors properly and start providing our unique products and services to the community again. We would also like to be able to hire one or two temporary staff members once we reopen, so we can limit the impact to our customers who lost their batches in the fire by quickly and effectively catching up on the 3 months of wine, beer and cider production to replace them. This appeal comes from our sincere desire to best serve our community; rest assured that if the insurance does manage to cover both the recovery and operational costs, funds generated here would be invested in upgrading dated equipment to make our customers’ experience even better.
All of us greatly appreciate your time reading this, and helping us in any way you are able to!
With Lots of Love and Respect,
Duncan, Laura, Freyja, and Leander Blackman
The Happy Homebrewers
Under the very experienced, skilled and enthusiastic expertise of the owner, Duncan Blackman, Happy Homebrewer makes wine, beer, and cider on premise for customers. Duncan also helps kindle similar excitement for anyone looking to embark on this wonderful hobby, providing supplies, ingredients, and as much fermentation knowledge as you want--or can handle-- per visit.
Our family has poured everything we have (and more) into the store, and have watched it grow into an amazing community of customers and friends; however, we have also seen a share of hardships. While this is par for the course for a small business, this year in particular seems to be hitting us rather hard. In January, we had a break-in that forced us to close for a few days, losing revenue while repairing our space and replacing losses. Once we had recovered from that incident, we had the misfortune to have an old radio cause an electric fire in our production space. We are hugely grateful that it happened after business hours and nobody was hurt, but the damage is extensive. Smoke and fumes have rendered our inventory of supplies and ingredients unusable, and while the fire was contained, it destroyed our fermentation room and ruined all of the wine, beer, and cider batches already in the fermentation process-- or worse, ready to bottle but not yet taken home.
We have insurance, of course, but are watching the recovery costs grow exponentially just 24 hours after the fire and are quite worried about the overall level of repair and reconstruction required to reopen our doors. Happy Homebrewer needs to be closed for a few weeks, and will have to wait for the insurance payment to arrive while addressing the invoices, bills, and expenses we would otherwise be managing with our regular cash flow.
Thus, we are forced to humbly seek assistance from our community, and from the social network at large. We are asking for your help to guarantee that we have enough capital to reopen our doors properly and start providing our unique products and services to the community again. We would also like to be able to hire one or two temporary staff members once we reopen, so we can limit the impact to our customers who lost their batches in the fire by quickly and effectively catching up on the 3 months of wine, beer and cider production to replace them. This appeal comes from our sincere desire to best serve our community; rest assured that if the insurance does manage to cover both the recovery and operational costs, funds generated here would be invested in upgrading dated equipment to make our customers’ experience even better.
All of us greatly appreciate your time reading this, and helping us in any way you are able to!
With Lots of Love and Respect,
Duncan, Laura, Freyja, and Leander Blackman
The Happy Homebrewers
Organizer
Duncan Blackman
Organizer
Victoria, BC
