Here’s a story about winter, snowboarding and a swan-a-thon . . . swan-off . . . swanderlust? Swan-a-thon, that’s what we’re going with. Grab a coffee, friends, I couldn’t figure out a short way to tell this story.
Later this week (10/4), we’re throwing a grand opening party for the DOMA Café, which is one part celebration, one part latte art throwdown, and one part fueling the stoke around winter sports for some kids who may very well not like winter. Let’s start with the winter part.
A defining “this is winter” memory for me is from 1993 or 1994. I was the type of kid who woke with just enough time to get cleaned up and dressed, grab an apple, and get out the door. I never gave myself enough time to dry my hair before heading out to wait for the bus. We’d be standing there for maybe 10 minutes, and my hair would freeze, then we’d get on the bus and it would thaw and drip all over my shoulders, neck and back. I hated it. I hated waking up in the dark, I hated frozen hair, and I hated constantly being cold and wet.
For a few years, that was winter to me. Dark. Cold. Wet. Then my folks took my sisters and me to the mountain to try snowboarding and everything changed. Winter became a joy, the time when we could ride. It was still a cold, wet, dark time, but carving down the mountain, flowing through the trees, opening it up and seeing how fast we could go transformed the worst time of year into one of my favorites. It’s a powerful thing and an experience I try to encourage and share.
Whether you’re new to the northern states or not, winter is a riddle that needs to be solved in order to thrive. At least for me, snowboarding was the solution to that riddle and it has been for the 30-ish years since I was introduced to the sport. My wife, Julia, feels the same and we’ve raised all three of our kids to ski and snowboard and be comfortable and capable in the mountains and in the snow.
The sad truth is that it’s d@$n expensive to take up any winter mountain sport. Prohibitively expensive for a huge portion of people. These days (maybe always – I don’t know) if you want to be into snowboarding (and you should) you gotta sacrifice to buy the gear and the passes and the clothing to stay dry and warm.
Deep down in the heart of what makes this company run is a desire to share good things with others. A good cup of coffee, a great story, a new artist you should check out. Or, in this case, the ability for some kids to get to the mountain, who otherwise might not be able to.
Julia reached out to our old friend Kevin who teaches at Venture Academy, and I talked to a few people, including Terry and Rebecca (who have been known to support a good cause now and again and who know their way around a pair of skis), and together we pulled off a cool experience. Last winter, we raised money, got lift tickets, gear and some transportation. Next thing you know, a handful of kids were able to get up to the mountains and try snowboarding for the first time.
Some kids liked it, some kids were kinda “meh” about it . . . but some kids LOVED it. And those kids got that fire lit. Just like I did so many years ago, they might pursue the sport and enjoy a time of year that in the past was just a tough, long, slog.
So here we are now, a year later, and a bunch of paragraphs into a story that’s starting to feel too long, but it’s not over yet.
We’re going to get more kids on the mountain , and hopefully do it even bigger this year. To make it happen, we’re going to stick with what we do best: coffee and parties.
At the grand opening party for the café (Friday, October 4th) we’re going to have a little contest. A swan-a-thon. We might have coined that, so here’s a definition: a swan-a-thon is the attempt to create the image of a swan with the steamed milk that is poured on top of a coffee drink, like a latte. You’ve probably seen latte art in the form of a flower or a heart on top of your coffee before. Swans are kind of tough. But we’ve already had some skilled submissions from baristas at local shops who will be at Friday’s swan-a-thon.
Our friends at Mt. Spokane (where I learned to snowboard, coincidentally) have generously, and with high levels of stoke, agreed to donate a lift ticket for every decent swan that’s poured at the party. These lift tickets will go to the kids we sponsor this year. We’re going to reach out to our local and not-so-local partners in the snowsports industry to see if we can get some equipment, snowpants, jackets, gloves and such donated or sold to us at a discount so that the soon-to-be shredders heading up to the mountain can do so safely and, ideally, as warm and dry as possible.
If you’ve read this far, here’s how you can help us make this plan come to life:
First, come to the party on October 4. Click this link to reserve your ticket!
Second, practice those swans and pour a beauty on Friday.
Third, if you can’t pour a swan, but still want to help, make a donation toward a lift ticket or gear. Check out that Eventbrite link and purchase a “donation” ticket. You decide the amount. Or come to the party and drop a fiver into the donation jar that’ll be sitting up by the espresso machine. We’ll use those dollars to get more kids up to the mountain.
And that’s enough of an essay for one day. Until next time: peace, love, coffee.
-Muir