Tandem Squared Rolled Ice Cream & Coffee Cafe needs your help!

Tandem Squared is a social enterprise creating employment opportunities for people with disabilities by serving ice cream & coffee.

It is with great shame & guilt that I did not create a payment plan with the State of Colorado to pay the shops sales taxes. On months when money was tight I paid the people - our employees who rely on their wages to live, our local vendors, and the utilities / supplies to keep us operating to bring in more money. I did not realize that one day the state would come and seize my business for those taxes owed - I knew I had the debt, and I continued to set aside invoices each month, on the invoice their is a column for interest so in my head I thought it was like a credit card where debt & interest accrued and at some point I would have enough money to pay that debt. I now know that is not how this process works - and I know some will judge this decision - others will understand that running a business and when making these late-night early morning questions there are no right answers.

And now with great humility I ask for your help - in re-opening our doors to create a space for joy and community celebrating diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

I feel like I cannot ask for your financial support without continued vulnerability, and sharing our whole story ...

So there I was laying in a hospital bed, tubes in my nose listening to this woman sitting of the foot of my bed – I assumed she was a doctor because she was wearing a white jacket, and through tears telling me we did everything we could to keep you alive - your uterus ruptered during delivery, 1% chance, full blood transfusion, coded, coma, stints…and your beautiful baby boy. I took my son, embracing him holding him tight - this little ray of sunshine while I also tried to hold the grief and fear of what I had just experienced.

I sat on a bench while on vacation with my family - watching the waves of the ocean beat against the shore. My phone rang - cancer center. I listened as the person on the phone explained that my oncology team wanted me in immediately - extremely aggressive, no time to wait, a double mastectomy, amputation, we don’t know what else yet, but we need to remove the tumors as quickly as possible. I look around how do I hold cancer in one hand, and the joy of a family vacation in tandem?

I’m with my dad now, laying in his hospice bed - listening to his favorite songs on repeat - Amazing Grace and The Rose by Bette Middler; sharing things I had never shared before as he listened. For days this was our routine. As he took his last breath and his spirit filled the room, I put my hand to my chest and knew the cancer was back. How do I walk out of this building with a dead father and cancer. My hands are getting too full, I collapse to the ground and cry - just on the curb as people walk by.

Almost 2 years of chemo, radiation, immunotherapy, 2 surgeries, carrying around the ashes of my dead father, I became friends with mortality - succumbing to the grief.

It was a Sunday afternoon I got a phone call - surgery center - my head hung…what can it be now?! It was my surgeon who I had met over 5 years ago, he said “I hope its okay that I called on a Sunday afternoon, I wanted to be the first one to tell you - you are cancer free.” Confused I am supposed to feel immense joy, but my body doesn’t seem to feel anything anymore.

I walk into a coffee shop - coffee brings me joy, the kid behind the counter asks how my day is - I blurt out well I do not have cancer anymore. He asks if I would like a free cake pop. I stand confused holding my cake pop looking around. I see a sign about trauma healing - really?! Where do I start - the trauma of today? Or the last 40 years?!

But I begin the process of discovery - leaning into my grief, what is important, what brings me meaning, what brings me joy?

I begin to feel - I begin to brush my teeth, I begin to want to eat, I begin to go out in public. That summer I had a trip planned for my sons 16th birthday - we had been planning it since he was in kindergarten. I did not feel like I could do it, but I packed my suitcase - flowy dresses for castle tours and wine drinking; and some of my fathers ashes.

The day before we are to leave for Germany I go to get coffee - when I hold a cup of coffee I feel its comforting warmth - I breathe in the earthy grounding aroma, and it fills my body with peace. But the door to the coffee shop is locked, and on it is a sign that says “for lease” I immediately call the realtor. I go home and tell my husband - you know how I always wanted to open an ice cream shop? Well I want to. Now. He said I think you are crazy, and I said I think so too, but we called the realtor and I added my laptop to my suitcase.

My son and I drove into this little remote town to visit the castle that inspired Walt Disney himself - my mouth dropped in awe as the castle came into view, I exclaimed “I want to do that - pointing to the people parasailing over the castle” my son replied with a flat your crazy mom - your gonna do that on your own. So the next morning I sat on top of a mountain in the Alps - high above the clouds looking out and thinking about what was next, what was I leaping towards? What was I jumping away from? I looked at the edge - the cliff that I was supposed to run off of before literally flying over some of the tallest mountains in the world - gripping so much grief - but also meditating on the warmth and the joy that held me over that sky.

30-days later - opening day of Tandem Squared Rolled Ice Cream & Coffee Cafe - creating a space that allowed me to give my guests two things that brought my life so much joy - coffee & ice cream. Creating a space with hopes that people can walk in and drop their grief at the door and only hold joy.

3 months later I open the mailbox to this beautifully wrapped yellow package - I carefully open it. I see a picture of a beautiful little girl - behind it a handwritten letter. My family visited your shop. For a moment we were able to let go of the grief we are carrying and just find joy. This little girl passed away shortly after her visit with us.

So many people pass by us each and every day, we don't know their stories - we don't know the grief they carry.

I haven't figured it out entirely, almost every day is a struggle between something devastatingly hard and something magical - the hard may be simple or may be huge and the joy may be magical or as simple as a kind old man walking through your day. But what I have learned from dancing with death and carrying so much grief that it is possible to hold both in tandem.

I shared this story on Friday night. Today I got a frantic text, “Cassidy you have got to get in here, they are closing down the shop.” Within minutes I was standing at the door of the shop with a man explaining that I could no longer enter, I was behind and had not filed sales tax. The State of Colorado will auction off the contents of the shop if I cannot pay the balance within 10-days.

Luckily there was a large post behind me, it literally held me up and as he walked away I slid down it and bawled, holding the grief, the shame and the guilt of not doing the right thing (paying my taxes) to keep these doors open for our team and guests.

I could say it's because times are tough - and they are, and there is so much more!

Our mission is to create employment opportunities for people with disabilities – not to create profits, or for me to be paid for that matter (which I have not been since day 1) but just to make enough to remain operational and potentially open another business with the same mission. But we haven't made enough money – for many we have become a place of community. One customer, a veteran with PTSD, introduces me as his coffee family, and that is how I see our employees and guests - that has been my focus.

We are financially conservative - doing repair work ourselves, purchasing used or discounted equipment; our sales are good. But our payroll costs are almost double of what they “should be” - because of our mission. A typical ice cream or coffee shop our size would have one person working for many hours while we have 2. Other businesses with a similar mission - employing people with disabilities don't pay people with disabilities - they volunteer or apprentice whereas we pay everyone at least minimum wage. This commitment to paying does increase our costs, a lot.

I am trying to explore options to keep our business open, but we currently owe almost twenty thousand dollars in back sales tax and I just don't know how to do it. Up to this point we have operated off cash - we don't have operational loans. And I am committed to continuing to largely fund the costs to remain operating when expenses are greater than income - because I value the mission.

If we never opened again, I personally would have less stress and more money – which sounds like a win. But I would have 11 unemployed team members; 7 of which identify as people with disabilities and would struggle immensely to find another job. Our community of people with disabilities would lose a space that made them feel joy, that allowed them to leave grief at the door. The message of “we, people with disabilities can do this – we can own and operate a business” will be lost.

I personally would miss the man who, every time he visits I check his fingernails - because he told me once that he wasn't enduring cancer treatment - he had a pill from his doctor in which to take when he was ready, and the sign for him was that he could no longer take care of his fingernails himself. I would miss husky-man who due to his anxiety mostly stays at home except his daily visit for coffee while on a run with his dog. The people who come in weekly for day programs for people with intellectual disabilities. The autistic man who lives above us who comes in sometimes twice a day just to say connect with another human. The autistic boy who runs so fast out the front door with mom chasing - because in between bites he has the urge to run. I would desperately miss this coffee family, what it represents to me and the way in which it contributes to our community.

I continue to appreciate the contributions and support from our community - supporting me, our team and all people who struggle in typical employment settings.