Web Feature: Lattes, Biscotti and a Chance to Thank the Troops
Maryland shop looks to draw other cafés into holiday card campaignBy Dan Leif
Want your coffee shop to help spread some cheer this holiday season, but don’t have the time or resources for anything too complex? Get in touch with Deb Hoffman.
Hoffman, owner of The Big Bean in Severna Park, Md., conceived a campaign called “Holiday Cards for Our Troops” last year. The idea was simple but meaningful: Hoffman and her staff brought in holiday cards they hadn’t used the winter before and piled them in the shop, alongside signage encouraging customers to fill the blank stationery with messages for injured members of the military who were laid up at nearby Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The idea was a hit (the coffeehouse sent off nearly 200 cards), and now Hoffman wants to involve more shops—both in Maryland and around the country. “This is a very easy project that creates good will,” she says. “It’s a way independent coffee stores can distinguish themselves from big chains.”
Hoffman says she doesn’t have any particular connection to the military. The idea grew out of the fact that she always seemed to have unused holiday cards at the end of the season, and she says she figured that patients at Walter Reed, injured and likely far from home, could probably use some love at a time when the rest of the country was gathering with family. Her customers responded enthusiastically. Regulars who had a few minutes to spare between appointments took time to write messages—and then brought in their own unused cards to add to the collection. So did students from a private school around the corner. Finally, a Brownie troop hand-crafted cards and brought in a stack that others could write in. “The thing that amazed me was how many people wrote wonderful, poetic letters,” Hoffman says. “It wasn’t just, ‘Oh, get better and have a good holiday.’ It was really from the gut.”
Might this be too much of a political statement for some shops? Hoffman doesn’t think so. She says that while her community, a suburb of Washington, is decidedly Republican, she sees The Big Bean as “a Democratic Mecca” and that none of her left-leaning patrons expressed misgivings. “Even people that are anti-war are supportive of the troops and the sacrifices they are making,” she says. “This kind of transcends politics.”
It can also bring in new customers. Hoffman says when her effort got under way last December, a local newspaper ran a story about the shop, and that in turn brought in a few new faces who wanted to participate.
But ultimately, the effort is about doing something for others. “In my little coffee store, we’re always looking for some project to do,” Hoffman says. “One year we collected clothing for a women’s shelter. With the cards, if you provide people with the opportunity, they will participate. Everyone wants to participate in something community-conscious-wise during the holidays.”
Shop owners interested in being a part of “Holiday Cards for Our Troops” can e-mail Hoffman at bigbeaner@comcast.net.
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