Danny and Kathy Living in Sedona, AZ at Raw Spirit Festival 2007
In December of 2006, we went raw following a 30-day detox (www.blessedherbs.com). At the end of the detox, it suggested eating raw food for the first few days before going right back to our "normal" diet (we were vegans). After a couple of days, we thought, "Hey, we feel pretty good. Let's eat raw again tomorrow." Then a week went by, then a month...then, a year.
Well, well.
Back in January 2007, we joined a raw food potluck group in our home town. The woman who organized the Meetup group was looking for a place to host the next Meetup and we offered our home.
About 7 people showed up and we had a great time.
The next month, we said we'd have it at our home again.
About 12 people showed up the next time.
Meanwhile, the organizer kind of lost interest and we asked to be made the assistant organizer, which allowed us to post messages, upload pictures and all the fun stuff an organizer does. We began to use Meetup to correspond with new members and promote our Meetups. We always tried to serve the best possible food, welcome new members and share what we were learning.
Soon, we had over 30 people coming to our little town home.
We decided we'd found our passion.
In the Spring, someone brought a copy of the movie, "The Secret" to our house and we watched it at a Meetup.
We were so excited about the movie we decided to watch it every day for 90 days to see what happened.
Two weeks into The Secret marathon, we wrote on a piece of paper:
"In OCTOBER of 2007 we opened Borrowed Earth Cafe."
We taped that paper to our bathroom mirror and looked at it every day.
In August of 2007, we got an automatic email from Meetup saying the organizer had dropped and the message asked if we'd like to take over.
We said yes!
In the mean time, our Meetups had grown to 45 plus.
By then, both of us had lost our jobs, but we clung to the belief that we could manifest Borrowed Earth Cafe, if we just believed that it had already been ordered from the catalog of the Universe.
In October 11 of 2007, we walked out of an attorney's office with the keys to Borrowed Earth Cafe and we drove over to 970 Warren Avenue and opened the door.
We had done it!
So many friends, Meetup members and perfect strangers believed in our vision.
It is our vision to offer a place where people can feel good, eating what we consider to be Simply the Best Food on the Planet, all prepared with love.
Check out our Meetup group for pictures and mail archive. Read the descriptions of the old Meetups and look around.
Feel free to join our Raw Food Meetup "Naperville Raw Food Meetup," the place where this all started--even if you don't live in our part of the world, you can always join and read the mail archive, enjoy the photos and post messages. We have a Meetup member in our group who lives in Ankara, Turkey!
To be continued...