As a former two-time restaurant owner, I can tell you that in the absolute best of times, it can be almost impossible hard to keep a restaurant afloat. It's not a high profit business. Pretty you much you hope to do a volume business that makes all those little small profits bundle together enough so you can actually take a paycheck for yourself.

When you face a crisis like the restaurant industry has been dealing with, it must feel totally impossible.You start having to think in terms of ending other people's jobs to save your business. Or starting to think of a way out of the whole business in general, without completely losing everything you have.

At the Harbor Cafe in Stonington, they've been facing similar problems of their own since the pandemic began. As word got around to some customers and former employees that they were struggling, everyone wanted to try and find a way to help. So a couple of them got together and started an online fundraiser.

It must've struck a chord within the community, because less than a week into the fundraising efforts, they had raised over $18,000 of their $20,000 goal. Which makes it pretty apparent that the Harbor Cafe means a lot to it's community members.

My mom told me last week, or maybe the week before, that it was possibly going to have to close permanently and we were like, how can we help?.....It just kind of blew up. So far we’ve raised $18,000 in not even a week.

That's what former employee Aimee Brown said to Fox ABC Maine last week. She was one of the folks who got the online fundraising moving.

I don't even have anything to do with this place, but I understand where they're at. Scary times, flying by the seat of your pants, wondering if you can pay your employees..nevermind if you can pay yourself. But the community let them know loud and clear, just how much they are loved.

If that's not it's own kind of great success, I don't know what is.

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