We Need a Water Filter

EDITED CAMPAIGN ALERT:

Hi everyone! First, we want to say thank you to everyone who donated so far. We appreciate your willingness to help with this effort in these very uncertain and unprecedented times.

After much consideration, we have changed the focus of this campaign. If you wish to get a refund for your contribution, please contact GoFundMe through the "Help" page. There are instructions on how to do that.

We'll be letting go of the opportunity for the pop-ups. While this means our future income, like many others,  will be in jeopardy, we can't in good conscience continue with those plans until we see how this plays out.

We started this campaign right before the seriousness of the COVID19 pandemic was truly apparent and did not promote the campaign because of announcements that were made both nationally and locally right after this went live. 

Why are we changing the focus?

Basically, the shortage of bottled water has concerned us.

We moved into our home in December 2019 in New Jersey from Atlanta to be closer to my mother who had a stroke and heart attack in April 2019. We closed our restaurants there with the intention of opening new restaurants here by March-April 2020. This pandemic has severely altered those plans and we're asking for help.

The house we live in has both a well and septic system and had been sitting empty for nearly 3 years. In that time, the well had accumulated an alarming amount of arsenic and other contaminants, which are naturally occurring and are deemed safe at certain levels. But, our arsenic level was at 14 ug/L and the accepted level is 5 ug/L. It is incredibly dangerous.

We were told that we could still move in,  but that, while we can take showers in the water,  we could not drink or cook with it nor use it to brush our teeth or give it to our dogs and that the health department would check it in 6 months to see if the levels lowered to a safe consumable level.

Our other option was to purchase a whole house filter with UV capabilities, which would cost somewhere between $3000-$4000 (including labor) or drink bottled water until it could be checked again. We were warned several times that regular filters do not weed out arsenic even if they get out other contaminants and the health department has checked on us twice at our house to make sure we were following their orders.  

We opted for bottled water since the cost of the filter was prohibitive for us at that time and figured we could get the other filter if the levels didn't go down and/or once we had income from our restaurants coming in.

This has been working fine until last week when we were rationed at the grocery and through a delivery service because of COVID19 "hoarding". We tried to explain that this was our needed and only resource of potable water, but to no avail. We tried to get a letter from the health department who  told us to take our report with us to the store. We did that but...there was no water to be bought by the time we went back.

We checked several stores and the same thing. No water was available. While we have a enough bottled water right now, we are truly worried that this is not sustainable if stock isn't replenished or we miss windows for purchasing since we are also practicing radical social distancing since our 78 year old mother/mother in law is in the high risk group and we are partially responsible for her care and need to stay healthy.

We are currently going through 3-4 potable gallons a day between our use depending on dinner options and our dogs, who also cannot drink the water from our tap. We have friends who have offered their taps to us, but that is also not a sustainable option since it would require being on other people's homes. We are trying to ration, but staying hydrated is a CDC recommendation for staying healthy so it's a serious catch-22.

We are now raising funds for the whole house water filter plus installation since:

1. We can no longer buy water in quantities that are sustainable because of rationing brought on my COVID19.

2. We will not have the income from restaurants in the spring as originally planned to buy a whole house filter when we get a our 6 month check up.

We have attached the report from New Jersey Analytical Laboratories for your consideration. 

No amount is too small and we know and appreciate that everyone is going through uncertain times as well. We're not officially offering rewards, but if you like tea, we have a bunch from our tea shop and can send you something if you put it in your notes. 

Thank you in advance for your contribution and here's  to hoping that all of this will end soon and that we can all start the road to recovery together...

Doria + Calavino







OLD CAMPAIGN BELOW:

Hi there! Calavino + Doria here...

We unexpectedly returned home to New Jersey in December 2019 to help with the care of Doria's mom who had a a stroke and a heart attack April 2019. While we were planning on a expansion of one of our restaurants and a move back home in the coming year and half, this incident created an unexpected sense of urgency that we couldn't ignore. 

So, we packed up our home and business in Atlanta , GA after we secured housing and left the place we've known for 26 years to be closer to family. Our goal was to make it home for the holidays and we did!

Unfortunately, the sale of one of our businesses fell through at the final hour and, with it, some much needed preliminary funding that we were going to use to retain a space that we'd signed a letter of intent for during a visit to the area in November. 

Luckily, we've been offered another opportunity by a local restaurateur to do a three month pop up in spaces he's no longer able to manage due to his day job demands as a doctor, father, and husband.

Originally wanting to sell outright, he's made a compromise to eventually owner-finance the spaces, but (by his own admission) was so impressed by us and our story that he's willing to let us use his beautiful, fully equipped spaces to get our concepts some word of mouth traction in the area. This will also give us time to secure full funding and investments to buy the spaces by July 1, 2020.

The funding we're currently asking for here will go towards inventory, marketing, supplemental small wares, training employees, and two months of working capital for these pop ups. All the spaces are in well populated, robust towns and villages and we're excited to get out hands dirty and start building ourselves back up here.

Thank you for your consideration and please look for further updates with info about who we are and what we do!

Hopefully submitted, 
Doria + Calavino