Alpha Coffee employee emergency fund
Donation protected
Hi, I'm Denái Churchill and I work for Alpha Coffee here in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. I have since my parents started it almost 10 years ago. I set up this GoFundMe for our amazing team. My parents are the owners of Alpha and wrote the message below. 100% of the funds donated will be used as an emergency fund to ensure our employees' payroll is sufficient to pay their bills and make it through the restrictions being imposed and the resulting drop off in revenues we are seeing as a company. Alpha has the highest levels of integrity and honesty and we will provide regular updates. Please read my parents' words below and if you can help, I know the whole team will sincerely appreciate it. #SmallBusinessRelief
Friends,
We started our business on Sept 11 2010 with a mission to provide awesome coffee while giving back. We built it from our basement with our kids and Lori working without pay for years while I worked second and third jobs. Almost 3 years ago, we mortgaged our house and took out an SBA loan to move into our first coffee shop and to have a place other than our basement to ship our coffee from. By last year we had grown to a team of 22 amazing employees and between our shop and our online business, we did over $1 million in revenue. And we did all this while sending over 17,500 bags of coffee to deployed troops. Alpha Coffee is a great American success story!
In a short couple of weeks we have been hammered by events we have no control over. We’ve been hit by COVID-19 restrictions so we can only offer to-go/pick-up from our store, and then we rode out a 5.8 earthquake and the delivery disruptions that followed. We have felt the love from our amazing community of customers and fans with encouraging words and support but our revenues and cash flow have been severely negatively impacted and our team has been rattled.
As a combat veteran and with Lori’s experience as a military spouse, we are not afraid of a fight and we know how to stand shoulder to shoulder and deal with difficult situations. We live the warrior ethos on a daily basis. We are rallying our team and making necessary adjustments. Lori and I are not taking a salary. We’ve cut back on shop hours (currently open 7:30 AM-5:30 PM). We’ve injected personal savings into our business. We’re redoubling our marketing efforts to boost online sales. Lori and I and our young leadership team are putting in 14+ hour days.
Our team has been selfless and resilient and continue to smile through it all, but this has taken an enormous toll on them. Many are young, and starting their lives out on their own, paying high rents, and some are without health insurance. We don’t have the luxury of working from home and many rely on their paychecks for survival. A few have very reluctantly had to resign and seek other options due to personal health concerns, pregnant spouses, etc. They've done that with our complete support.
We have a personal relationship with every single one of them. Whether it is Lori and a few of our employees cooking the whole team holiday dinners at our house or team meetings where we openly share the financials and discuss company strategy or teaching them one on one about personal finances and taxes, we have a special relationship with our team. We love them and are a big family that takes care of each other.
It goes against everything we stand for to ask others for help, but we have swallowed our pride for the sake of ensuring our employees can continue to get paid and continue to fight through this difficult and uncertain time. Lori and I will personally do everything we can for them. Now we are humbly asking for help from our community.
We are creating an employee survival fund to ensure we have the ability to keep making payroll and survive through the coming weeks and months and to do anything we can to support team members if they get sick. If you are in the position to help, we sincerely thank you in advance. Any amount helps.
Know that we will never quit and never give up. Alpha Coffee will survive and do everything we can to support our Alpha Family and our community of customers and fans that bring smiles to our faces and motivate us every day!
Carl and Lori Churchill
Friends,
We started our business on Sept 11 2010 with a mission to provide awesome coffee while giving back. We built it from our basement with our kids and Lori working without pay for years while I worked second and third jobs. Almost 3 years ago, we mortgaged our house and took out an SBA loan to move into our first coffee shop and to have a place other than our basement to ship our coffee from. By last year we had grown to a team of 22 amazing employees and between our shop and our online business, we did over $1 million in revenue. And we did all this while sending over 17,500 bags of coffee to deployed troops. Alpha Coffee is a great American success story!
In a short couple of weeks we have been hammered by events we have no control over. We’ve been hit by COVID-19 restrictions so we can only offer to-go/pick-up from our store, and then we rode out a 5.8 earthquake and the delivery disruptions that followed. We have felt the love from our amazing community of customers and fans with encouraging words and support but our revenues and cash flow have been severely negatively impacted and our team has been rattled.
As a combat veteran and with Lori’s experience as a military spouse, we are not afraid of a fight and we know how to stand shoulder to shoulder and deal with difficult situations. We live the warrior ethos on a daily basis. We are rallying our team and making necessary adjustments. Lori and I are not taking a salary. We’ve cut back on shop hours (currently open 7:30 AM-5:30 PM). We’ve injected personal savings into our business. We’re redoubling our marketing efforts to boost online sales. Lori and I and our young leadership team are putting in 14+ hour days.
Our team has been selfless and resilient and continue to smile through it all, but this has taken an enormous toll on them. Many are young, and starting their lives out on their own, paying high rents, and some are without health insurance. We don’t have the luxury of working from home and many rely on their paychecks for survival. A few have very reluctantly had to resign and seek other options due to personal health concerns, pregnant spouses, etc. They've done that with our complete support.
We have a personal relationship with every single one of them. Whether it is Lori and a few of our employees cooking the whole team holiday dinners at our house or team meetings where we openly share the financials and discuss company strategy or teaching them one on one about personal finances and taxes, we have a special relationship with our team. We love them and are a big family that takes care of each other.
It goes against everything we stand for to ask others for help, but we have swallowed our pride for the sake of ensuring our employees can continue to get paid and continue to fight through this difficult and uncertain time. Lori and I will personally do everything we can for them. Now we are humbly asking for help from our community.
We are creating an employee survival fund to ensure we have the ability to keep making payroll and survive through the coming weeks and months and to do anything we can to support team members if they get sick. If you are in the position to help, we sincerely thank you in advance. Any amount helps.
Know that we will never quit and never give up. Alpha Coffee will survive and do everything we can to support our Alpha Family and our community of customers and fans that bring smiles to our faces and motivate us every day!
Carl and Lori Churchill
Organizer and beneficiary
Denai Churchill
Organizer
Salt Lake City, UT
Carl Churchill
Beneficiary