A loan helped a family-owned coffee house buy an espresso machine for a shop we're expanding to!


Jennifer's story

My husband, William and I grew up in the same small Wisconsin paper mill town and knew each other most of our lives. Now married for 18 years, we find ourselves living in another Wisconsin paper mill town 134 miles directly south of where we called home. Times have changed. Both mills have since closed and the economic landscape is quite different from the heydays of paper. However, we continue to hold a deep love for the communities left to pick up the pieces. We believe what makes a town great is not machines and mills, but rather men and women who value their community.

We both value servant leadership, giving back to the community, serving our neighbors and staying involved in our local landscape. He has worked in middle school education for the past 18 years and is highly involved in youth athletics. I hold a masters degree in community mental health and have worked as executive director of a non-profit as well as in the faith community as a pastoral care and outreach director. We love this community and want to see its residents thrive.

I was working in full time ministry when the pandemic hit. My job was to connect the local church with the community. I was also tasked with congregational care and training up lay ministers to help provide that care. The pandemic made it all but impossible to do my job with any sort of fidelity to the way I had been doing it. Families I knew were hurting were now out of reach. Valuable community initiatives were now stalled. It left me confused. Frustrated. Numb. I had to rethink how I would walk through and out of that season with my authenticity intact. It seemed hopeless.

Enter, my friend Russ. He developed and owns Mission Coffee, a local coffee house and roastery in the neighboring town. His brand has built a reputation for excellence and his business model is centered on giving back to the community in which it exists. Russ reached out to me in the thick of the pandemic and asked me to attend a meeting at the local Technical College regarding opening a location on campus. He wanted me to run it. Wait. Not just run it. Own it. He was handing me a business! And he encouraged me to grow it within my county when I was ready.

This was it! This was the chance to be back with people. To be able to serve in a way unlike any ministry or service I'd ever done. Opening on a campus that was still closed down to the public and students may not have made sense at the time. But, we believed we would see the end of the pandemic and we decided to act like it. I left my job in formal ministry and became a business owner. The rest, as they say, is history.


This loan is special because:

It supports a small business owner with 0%-interest, zero-fee capital.



Loan details


About Mission Coffee

Industry: Food
Years in operation: 1 year - 3 years
Website: missioncoffeerapids.com

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Loan details