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▼If you care about small indie businesses, please share this! we’ve only got 5 days to reach our Kickstarter goal.
What Ad Astra means to me…
Ad Astra Books & Coffee House, from the very moment it was conceived, has been a sort of social experiment for a place like Salina, Kansas.
It starts with the worker-owned cooperative business model, in which every employee has a personal stake in the company. This is not your typical “For Profit.” Every face you see behind the counter belongs to an owner, with a say in the finances, the spending, the ordering, the inventory, and the event planning. After paying hourly wages, almost all profits are put back into the business.
This seems unusual to many small-town midwesterners, even though it’s more common than you might think. There are lots of assumptions when people hear the word “cooperative,” but in reality we are simply young, motivated, hard-working visionaries who know that we are greater than the sum of our parts.
We are localists, who believe in the power of community and diversity. Many of Ad Astra’s owners are from THIS small town, or other small towns a lot like it. We have grown up, moved away, and experienced life in other places. But we were pulled back to start families or other new small town adventures right here. As adults, we recognize a bubbling underbelly of like-minded people who, while they may or may not benefit from the services that the Big-Box Stores and Chain Restaurants provide, long for a more meaningful experience. That’s why we sunk our heart and souls into Ad Astra: to provide a gathering place for deep philosophical debate, silly costume-clad tea parties, BBQ-ing cowboy poets, espresso-crazed chess games, and so much more. We want to put Ad Astra into the hands of the community. It is YOUR bookstore/coffee shop, just as much as it is ours.
Funds we may lack, but belief, we have. We believe that this small town, just like the Big Ones down the road, deserves a place where local writers read aloud or where kids come after school for a book discussion disguised as a puppet show. We believe in a mecca for late night coffee drinkers, and a stage where local (and sometimes not-so-local) musicians and performing artists can find appreciative and supportive audiences.
Not only that, but we are full of drive. In a time when books and arts and creative thinking and, sometimes, even the idea of Community can get lost in the realm of the minority, we plant the seeds and grow the roots of what could become a burgeoning example of how a devoted and zealous passion can still rule our lives.
Will the experiment work? We think so. You only have a short time left to show that you do, too. Click on the link below. Deadline is March 28th.
We are hungry for that place we all dream of. Help us make that dream a reality.
To the Stars,
tammy jarvis
Co-Owner
