A cup of kindness
Coffee shop’s tips support nonprofits
SCHUYLERVILLE — The motto of the Espressohuis coffee shop on Ferry Street is “coffee for the community.”
And with some $2,800 donated to local nonprofits in its first six months of business, the espresso house (the definition of “huis” in Dutch) is living up to its motto.
All of the tips for two months go directly to a nonprofit, explained Jason Proctor, who opened the cafe, which is owned by the Faith Chapel on Church Street.
Already it has donated $1,300 to the Schuylerville Library and $1,500 to a veteran’s services nonprofit. And everything collected through Jan. 15 will go to the local food pantry.
Many of the employees are volunteers, including Proctor, who manages the coffee shop. “My wife and I have always had a dream of doing something like this,” he said.
After founding the Faith Chapel five years ago, Proctor saw the opportunity earlier this year to fulfill that dream.
Finding space for rent in the historic building on the bank of the ferry basin that made Schuylerville a center of commerce in the canal days, Proctor investigated.
“I looked in here and saw the long, narrow, nothing-matches spot and I thought, ‘that’s a perfect coffee shop,’ ” he said. Looking at the phone number to call, he found it was the same as his childhood number in Nashville, Tenn. Taking it as a sign, Proctor found a way to make his dream happen.
He went to his church board and congregation and proposed taking some of the church’s untouched savings and investing it in a space for the community.
“This wouldn’t have happened without the church,” he said. “We considered it an investment in the community; an investment in the people of Schuylerville.”
At the end of the year, all of the profits from the business will be divvied up between its sponsored nonprofits.
“It isn’t the church doing this, it’s Schuylerville doing it,” Proctor said of the donations.
That isn’t the extent of the business’s community involvement, though.
On the walls of the coffee shop are pieces of art from local artists and periodically events are hosted by local musicians or groups.
“At the end of the day, though, you can have all that right but people just want a good sandwich,” Proctor said with a laugh.
“We just wanted a place in the community, hopefully a cool place, that can be affordable but still have the best quality meats and breads. If it’s not homemade, it is the best we could get.”
Espressohuis is at 31 Ferry St. and is open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.