Hi, my name is Morgan, and I am raising money to help our small business survive. Some of you have known us from the beginning of our venture, when Mom and I went on a quest to raise awareness about the benefits of adopting a plant-based diet. Gaia's Kitchen & Catering started its journey as the hopeful dream of a teen activist and her mom, and it gained steam quicker than we expected. We rented a small booth at a shared kitchen, crossed fingers, prayed hard, and worked incredibly long hours. Soon the name of our brand began to spread, and we grew beyond our wildest expectations. We graduated from our small booth to a bigger space, but we quickly outgrew that arrangement also. Sometime last year, we were offered the opportunity to move to a new establishment that would offer much more cooling space and also another stream of revenue as a ghost kitchen. If we wanted to continue expanding, this step was the bold move we needed to make, so we decided to go with it. Growth is a necessary process, but unfortunately it does not come without growing pains. Our expenses to move to the new facility were pretty high, and some were unexpected. We rolled our sleeves and powered through it, but our move to our new home did not prove to be as profitable as we envisioned it to be. As a new facility, it needed time to work out the kinks and to become established, so our efforts were not matched with the type of revenue we needed to make this move sustainable. To make a long story short, our overhead doubled but our stream of revenue did not. We took a small loan with ridiculous terms of repayment (three months!) to carry us through to the warmer months when people like to get out more and eat out, so that was no relief at all. We are working hard to secure new accounts that will offset the loss we incurred in the last few months, and we stand strong knowing that things will continue to get better in the months to come, but until then we need a little cushion.

We are starting a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds that will ensure our survival as a small business until we sail to smoother waters in the next few months. Please send good thoughts toward a positive resolution for a new corporate account that's currently in the works.

To make this fun, we are going to keep a list of all the names of donors, and each month during the campaign we will draw a winner for a three-course meal (includes a pan of your entrée of choice, a pan of salad, and a pan of your favorite dessert.)

We thank you in advance from the bottom of our hearts, and we look forward to continue serving our community for many years to come.

With much love,

Sandra and Morgan