Sanctuary Church, which holds services inside Taproot Theatre and created the Green Bean Coffee House, is working to establish a fund – Greenwood Fire Relief Fund – at JP Morgan Chase in Greenwood for donations to support the Greenwood businesses that were damaged and destroyed in Friday’s fire. Chase (formerly Washington Mutual) is on the corner of 85th and Greenwood.
Summer Mohrlang, manager of the Green Bean and a pastor at Sanctuary Church, just called me to say they are working through all the legal issues with setting up a fund, and hope to have it up by the end of today. Green Bean’s website also has a place you can make a direct donation to them through PayPal.
According to Sanctuary’s website, they’ll be holding a “Greenwood Fire Wake” tonight from 7-9 p.m. at the church’s offices above Chase on 85th and Greenwood.
Find the door at the south east corner of the building and come up the stairs, first door on the left. We will have a time to gather, share stories and grieve the results of the fire. All are welcome!
And we received a note from Faith, who suggested local businesses set up donation cans next Saturday, Oct. 31, to take advantage of all the afternoon trick-or-treaters at the annual Safe Trick-or-Treat from 12-3 p.m.
…while you have tons of people and their kids walking store-to-store for Halloween and whatever you collect be divided up between the businesses to help them with whatever small amount collected. I am sure every store would put an empty can on their counter for collection and that every member of the Chamber would put something on their counter for donations.
Steve Giliberto, Greenwood-Phinney Chamber of Commerce president, sent out a note saying the Chamber met this afternoon to work out a plan to help the affected businesses.
What we’re learning quickly is that much of the shock of what’s happening to them has yet to settle in, leaving them quite understandably unable to articulate yet how best we and the rest of the community can help them.
Nevertheless, we’ve made contact with some, though not all, of the businesses (though we are working to make contact with those we’ve not been able to hail as of yet) to assure them that the Greenwood-Phinney Chamber of Commerce is ready and willing to provide whatever support they need in as best a manner as we can deliver. Of those we have made contact with, they’ve asked us to give them some time to sort out just exactly what their next steps are as many of them just plain don’t know. Our goal over the course of the next few days and into the beginning of next week is to stay in touch with them and be ready to organize efforts that will best help their cause.
