Yellow Dog donation above board, owner and recipient say
Jul. 2—Yellow Dog Coffee Company's owners stand behind a donation to a homeless advocacy group from money initially given to them to repair their business.
Donors gave $3,665 to shop co-owner Sereta Wilson through a GoFundMe to repair two busted windows found June 6 at the shop, 222 S. Porter Ave. The repairs were instead covered by the business's insurance, which Wilson said she didn't expect.
In turn, the owners on June 24 donated the money to Norman Care-A-Vans, an organization that addresses transportation and service needs for unhoused people in the city.
Despite uproar on social media over how the money was used, Wilson and Care-A-Vans organizers argue the reallocation was transparent.
Wilson called the GoFundMe a "knee jerk" based on what she believed at the time. She decided to set up the fund to avoid conflicts because her business partner Kate Bierman was running for state representative at the time, and the windows were busted two days before they had an inspection for their occupancy permit.
"If there's anybody out there that wants their money back, I'm happy to give it to them," Wilson said. "I hope not. But, you know, we can do that."
She said she decided to give the money to Care-A-Vans because she had decided to give any money beyond the amount needed back to the community.
Wilson said her insurance deductible at the business is about $1,000, and the cost to replace the window was $1,200. She thought she would need $5,000 to replace them, she said. An hour after the incident was posted to the business' Facebook page, she set up a GoFundMe account.
"Many businesses do kickstarters for these kinds of projects," a post to their page read. "We didn't do that choosing instead to take personal loans against our houses etc. so to have this kind of set back at the finish line was a gut punch."
The city was going to inspect the business for an occupancy permit two days after the vandalism. Wilson said she decided to pay their employees for the two weeks it would take to repair it.
"I had no idea if the city was going to give us an occupancy permit, you know? I really didn't know what was going to happen," she said.
Care-A-Vans member Russell Rice confirmed Wilson made sure it was OK with the organization before she gave them the money.
Care-A-Vans does not have 501c-3 status as an official nonprofit, according to a June 28 letter from the city. But unhoused people have praised the organization for filling their transportation needs.
Beginning Tuesday, the group organized a sit-in inside city hall in response to the city homeless shelter's closure the day prior.
Rice said he's thankful for Wilson's donation.
"It's helping real-world people," he said.
"I think about robbing banks to cover this s---," said Care-A-Vans member Alan Hatcher. "If someone wants to give us money, we made it clear to them, 'We need f---ing money. We need hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix this f---ing problem."
