While the TV and the algorithms try to convince us that the world is rotten, these people were kind and generous and wonderful. Thank you to:
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🌯 Alejandra, owner of the Red Kitchen, gave us free burritos every time we visited for breakfast. "Let me HELP you," she said.
(This list is not in order of importance, but that one is pretty important)
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💳 The day after the fire, we put out a call to buy gift cards to help us bridge the gap. Hundreds of good neighbors purchased gift cards, I believe many people never even intended on using them – they just wanted to help.
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📦 While our building was closed, we couldn't receive shipments that were addressed to the bookstore. We needed them for pop-ups and events so instead of the boxes getting returned and lost in the system, our delivery guy – let's call him Derek – brought them to our home at the end of every shift.
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🥰 Flint Hills Books, one of our favorite Kansas bookstores, sent us a check in the mail. Absolutely no questions asked.
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🪴 The owners of the historic Dome House let us use their home for free to host a plant class. It was a school night and they have elementary school kids – they just made it work.
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📚 Jennifer lended us her brand new book carts for our pop-ups. We are still using her book carts, actually 😃 Spencer and Kate S. also brought us book carts to use. We didn't even ask, they just showed up.
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📚 We received hundreds of donated used books. Many of the boxes seemed perfectly curated for our store. These were not people's trash.
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🖤 Trabon Printing printed an entire case of bookmarks for free and dropped them off on our porch.
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📦 Everyone who showed up before or after pop-ups just to help us unbox everything and box it back up again. "Do you guys need any help?!" (Sue, Heather, Steve, Laura, Monroe, Lily, Meg, Abby, Annie, and many others)
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🤗 Miss Sue, who was our very first customer back in 2024, brought us countless batches of scones, donated several bags of cleaning supplies, invested heavily in our daughter's lemonade stands, and even made us a custom monstera-themed quilt. (Pictured above!!!!!!!!)
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🍕 Riley & Lauren brought pizzas for our staff on re-opening day. If they hadn't been so thoughtful, we'd have forgotten to eat.
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🧡 Our friends at Homer's Coffee House let us use their bathroom on the weekends during our outdoor pop-ups. CLUTCH.
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🏢 Karen from Crafted Fair Trade, Annie from Annie Austen Jewelry, and Bridget from Lavada Wine Shop all offered to make room for us in their buildings for storage or pop-ups.
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🔑 Ashley from Home Holistic (across the street) let us keep our equipment and inventory in her space overnight for the Fall Festival. We would've had to break down that night, take everything home, and set up again at 6am without her.
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⚡️ The weekend before Thanksgiving, the electrician didn't show up. We had the final inspection scheduled on Monday morning and our friend Justin, an electrician, spent an entire Sunday making sure everything was ready so we'd pass the inspection.
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🏠 Our staff worked for several weeks to price books and prepare inventory – in our kitchen and spare bedroom – so that we could move into the store quickly when it was ready.
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💕 Laramie worked every day this summer cleaning out the store, re-ordering books, managing online orders, and delivering packages all over Kansas City.
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📚 Meg Bannen, local bestselling author (and friend of the shop!), promoted our store at every turn and even helped us set up the tent one weekend.
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🪴 Kate's family was in town the week of the fire for a family reunion. Several of them came directly to the store to help us clean up the flooding, save our belongings, and take our plants home to be saved.
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🚙 Mackenzie and Blake drove the 2-hour trip from Maryville many times to help clean plants, refinish furniture, and restock shelves.
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🧼 Annie, Stefl, and Morgan spent hours in our driveway cleaning soot from furniture, storage shelves, and book crates.
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⛺️ Abby gave us her tent for several weeks for pop-ups and she filled her garage with boxes of books (even our replacement green couch!) for three months because we had no more storage at our house. Bless her heart, she even interviewed with the news crew when we didn't want to talk after the fire.
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🛠️ Jack and Ryan, who built our cashiers desk when we opened the first time, carefully took it apart so we could salvage it and showed up with very little notice to re-install it right before Thanksgiving.
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🍹 Marissa venmoed us money specifically for a bottle of Espolon Blanco tequila.
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💬 The Stefl family, former insurance adjusters, gave us invaluable advice that first week after the fire.
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📝 Everyone at the City of Overland Park who helped us move through the permit process quickly and smoothly: Kate G., Brooke, Leslie, and Meg
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🥪 Abby's parents sent us sandwiches and breakfast for the whole group during move-in week.
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🔧 Loren and Jettie spent all day putting together storage shelves and desks from IKEA on move-in day.
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📦 Everyone who volunteered to help during the 4 days we moved back in. They unpacked boxes, sorted books, and stocked shelves for free – speeding up what took us weeks the first time: Annie, Pivo, Abby, Stefl, Steve, Heather, Sue, Jettie, Loren, Ralph, Hank, Monroe, and more.
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⭐️ More than 50 people took time to give us 5-star reviews during the first few weeks after we opened.
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🤗 Kate's dad, Alan, drove down from Iowa to help us move back in. He booked a hotel for the whole week. He didn't ask, he just showed up.
Honorable Mentions:
Mapquest (still a thing!), for being able to find the most efficient loop for several different book deliveries.
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The dolly we bought from ACE Hardware saved us all some pain at the chiropractor.
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Meyers Multi-Surface Everyday Cleaner
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Brian the contractor. He took a lot of phone calls from the bookstore lady.
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My neighbors, for not calling the city council about all the crap in our driveway all summer.
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My dad's 1996 Chevy Silverado, which took about 600 trips back and forth to the store this year. The cassette player broke but she's still running good.
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The Spectrum internet guy for convincing us to buy an o-zone machine to get the smell out of things. "My friends who smoke use it to get the smell out of their car."
In Memoriam:
The hostas next to our front door. They took a beating from an increase in traffic.
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The grass next to our front door. Not great.
Thanks to you as well, for following our story and supporting our family-owned, local business. We love our neighbors!
