Pixie Adams went to great lengths to keep her competitor’s coffee shop open.
In December 2019, she closed Moonlight Coffeehouse in Oak Grove, Oregon for the day in order to work for free about a mile away at The Local Coffee Company instead.
Why? Because the fledgling coffee shop’s owners had just been hit with life-shattering news.
Tina and Dave McAdams had found out the Dave had terminal cancer.
While they wanted to keep the coffee shop afloat, when Dave entered hospice for his final weeks, Tina needed to be with him. That meant there was no one to work the counter at The Local Coffee Company.
Or so they thought.
Not only did Adams step up to work for them while closing her own shop, with the couple’s permission she started a fundraiser for them as well. She even encouraged her customers to patronize The Local Coffee Company while the couple spent their last days together.
She took to Instagram to share the details and encourage the community to give back to a family that had already given so much:
“If you don’t know, Dave McAdams has spent years working to support the local Oak Grove and Milwaukie communities through volunteer work, non-profit work, sports coaching and sadly, is now in hospice care as he bravely faces a terminal cancer diagnosis. And that means their family needs OUR help!” she wrote on the Moonlight Coffee page.
According to Yahoo Lifestyle, the Moonlight Takeover Fundraiser raised almost $4,000 for McAdams. And a GoFundMe page that was created for the family has exceeded its $15,000 fundraising goal by over $2,000 to help with the family’s medical bills.
Adams’ good deed was partly born of her support for other local small businesses but was also a reminder of her own struggle. She opened Moonlight (which happens to be right next door to the McAdams’ home) right after battle with breast cancer in 2017.
She told Yahoo Lifestyle:
“I thought about what my cancer journey had been like, how hard it was to juggle and balance treatment and time with family and business. I told Tina, ‘I want to do this for you so you can spend whatever time Dave has left, at home with him.'”
And she’s not the only local coffee purveyor to step in to support the McAdams’. According to Food & Wine Portland’s Mudd Works Roastery donated and roasted 100 pounds of coffee beans to be sold as Dave’s LovedDeeply Brew with the proceeds from each bag going to the McAdams family.
Tina says Dave makes a lot of videos which he ends by telling viewers, “You are deeply loved,” hence the name.
On the day of the takeover/fundraiser, Adams could barely keep the coffee shop open because they were doing so much business.
Others stopped by the volunteer their time and Adams had to keep ordering more items that day because the shop kept running out.
The community came together to support Dave and Tina as hard as they could.
“It’s always going to be about friendship over business, community over competition,” Pixie Adams said. “Because at the end of the day, that’s how small businesses like us are going to continue to be here.”
Dave McAdams continues his battle and both coffee houses are now open thanks to family and friends who have stepped in to help Dave and Tina.
Be sure to scroll down below to see an interview with Adams.
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When a coffee shop owner went into hospice, a competitor worked there for free to help out
Dave McAdams and his wife, Tina, opened their coffee shop in Oak Grove, Oregon, a year ago, but he’s been an active part of the community for years as a youth pastor, a baseball coach, member of the Rotary Club and even the Portland Ghostbusters group.So, when Dave went into hospice care with terminal cancer, loyal customers of The Local Coffee Company and people in the community wanted to help.
