ON December 14th, 2012 , I watched the news and like the rest of the world was shocked, saddened and blown away by news of the Newtown School Massacre. The Monday following the shooting, I was at my job, working the nightshift as a 9-1-1 Operator for a California college. I sat there thinking, 'Wow, these people are in Newtown and they're probably trying to start their lives over again. The people of Newtown are probably starting their day like I did when I was an east coaster and will be trying to go back to their morning breakfast places to start their lives', but I knew their lives had changed and nothing would ever be the same. I knew this because when I was 17 years old, my brother and I came home from High School to find our grandfather had been murdered. He had been beaten to death as he lay in bed when three teen boys broke in to burglarize his house. I knew the people of Newtown were going to try and heal, but no matter what they will try a part of them will forever be changed' and that bothered me! So, I thought 'What can I give them to help them?'
I used a Yelp search and I found a morning coffee place, The Newtown General Store. I spoke to a woman there and told her 'I want to buy 100 cups of coffee to give out to their customers.' At first she didn't understand, but when she realized what I wanted to do and under the circumstances, she became nervous and by the end of the order, she was crying. Two times she got my credit card wrong so to make sure everything worked out, I gave her my phone number and name. I told her to call if anything went wrong. I didn't want to stick the store with handing out coffee and me not getting the bill. Once I did the donation, I put up a post on Facebook and Twitter because I wanted people to do the same.
'I just bought 100 Cups of Coffee to be handed out with my condolences to the people of Newtown CT at the Newtown General Store. 203-426-9901'.
I did this all by the end of my watch and left work and went to sleep. I woke to a phone call from the owner of the store. He told me everyone was grateful and people wanted to contact me and thank me, but he also said members of the press had heard about the coffee and wanted to talk to me about it. The owner also told me that he had put up a sign saying 'COFFEE TODAY HAS BEEN DONATED BY TOM CAVANAUGH OF LOS ANGELES' and that he made all the coffee free all day, NOT JUST 100 CUPS! He said that because of the posts on social media, my friends had started to call and make similar donations. I got off the phone and checked my email, Facebook & Twitter'
I was swamped from thank you message, stories that I inspired people to make similar donations and requests to talk to the press from the NY Times to LA TV stations! My giving the coffee went viral! People as far as Great Britian and South Africa were inspired and called Newtown. It was an act of direct donations. Using the buying power that we have as consumers and going directly to the source of the pain and purchasing the healing item of food and comfort to give directly to a city in pain.
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