Hello beautiful folk,

Jesse at the Conscious Café needs our help.

The Conscious Café is run by one solo man, Jesse Steiger. His spirit is so welcoming that many people come into the café and feel right at home. I’ve observed people pitching in, doing dishes, adding flowers to the table, sweeping the floor, wiping tables clean and it’s really rare and amazing to see and feel. It’s rare in our world. It’s a place that creates space in an open circle of community. Jesse‘s food is artful, inspired and healing. His cooking has Ayurvedic sensibilities but is not limited to a certain type of cuisine. He delights in making food that feels good to anyone who walks in the door. He cooks simple, special salmon and rice with tamari for my children, which is so appreciated on days when I’m out and about in town and needing a meal for them.

The café started out with ownership by Steamy Buddha, run by Natasha Sidhu. And two years ago, Jesse and Natasha made the shift to Jesse owning the café and changing its name - Conscious Café. It is linked to the three-fold healing center with Sanctuary on Church, Steamy Buddha and Conscious Café. This place is a beautiful vision of healing all parts of a person with therapies, yoga and nourishing food.

Jesse is always dreaming up beautiful evening events for us all to gather together such as

⭐️Monday Kitchen Junkets (in collaboration with me facilitating music making!)

⭐️ Tuesday Community Dinner (in which volunteers help prepare, plate and serve, and do dishes!)

⭐️Saturday vegan night and drum circle (with Michael Haden leading the jovial rhythm.)

*these are by donation, and money can be added to the jar on the counter or via Venmo. With this GoFunMe there will be another platform for everyone to donate.*

Jesse cooked 40 meals on Thanksgiving and again on Christmas for Health Acadia. They were delivered down the street so that homeless/low income people so they could have meals on those special days.

Now…

here comes the ask of all of us to contribute if we can.

Jesse is needing help to make it through the winter.

This ask comes with loads of understanding that there are many people globally and locally that need our $ support. We also very much understand that precious dollars can be tight within our own households. Anything that comes in for Conscious Café will feel like a tremendous gift and we thank you in advance. The energetic giving of volunteers during evening events and people coming into the café during open business hours is also a way that people can support.

The Conscious Café is open every day from 11am to 3pm.

A lot of times cafe/restaurant businesses in Maine need to make it through the winter. One typical strategy is to close in the winter months and open in the spring when there are more humans to support a small business. Jesse decided to stay open. In doing this, a few factors have been challenging - significantly more than in past years.

His rent went up. Food prices are high. Jesse is smart and resourceful, applying for grants that might land in the spring if we are lucky. Jesse and a trusted circle of friends looked at it closely and we see that $10,000 would be a gracious buffer to help the café survived the winter months.

I am thinking of this as a community supported café. I feel it when I go in. People are happy and smiling. It’s colorful and warm. Jesse‘s heart is so generous. He gives so much. I can picture the circle around him giving back to him so he can keep going.

Thank you.

With all my heart.

~ and thank you on the behalf of Jesse and the Conscious Café.