Alice Rieves was expecting a $3,000, maybe $4,000 donation in tips from Milkhouse Café.
So Rieves, Mid City Nutrition’s executive director, was a little surprised when the Fort Gratiot café donated more than $16,000 to the Port Huron nonprofit.
“I was in tears,” she said, and “that’s not chump change.”
Milkhouse Café, located at 4189 Keewahdin Road, has been choosing a local organization to donate 100 percent of its tips to.
For August, all tips collected were given to the St. Clair County Sheriff Dive Team and from the second half of May to the end of July all tips collected were given to Mid City Nutrition, said Milkhouse Café Manager Jeff Pemberton.
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“Our customers are incredibly generous,” he said, and when they know the tip is going toward a charity or nonprofit they might ask to add an additional $5.
The first two weeks of raising money for the nonprofit were the most shocking, with the cafe making close to $4,000 in tips.
“We knew it was adding up,” Pemberton said.
There is a long list of requests for who to support at the cafe and Mid City Nutrition was chosen because it is in need and seeing greater numbers of people who need help during the pandemic, Pemberton said.
Rieves said the nonprofit has had over a 20 percent increase in people using its services, “and I don’t see the need going away.”
The Milkhouse Café donation was put into the nonprofit’s new building fund at 830 Griswold St., with an estimated cost of over $1 million and with about $450,000 raised as of April.
Rieves said the building project is progressing and the nonprofit had hoped for a spring groundbreaking, but nobody was expecting the pandemic and it's behind a few months.
The nonprofit is anxiously anticipating a fall groundbreaking, she said.
“I am often overwhelmed by the generosity from this community, you are the best!,” Rieves said in a written message on Facebook. “We at the ‘Soup Kitchen’ could not continue our mission ‘To serve the hungry and underprivileged as long as there is a need’ without your generous support and confidence.”
Pemberton, who is on Mid City Nutrition’s board and is a Port Huron City Council member, said someone might not go to the soup kitchen to support it unless they are actively involved in it.
Donating money through tips is an easy way to support an organization and the cafe looks at it as creating an opportunity for the customers to be generous.
“And they’re the ones the that deliver every time,” Pemberton said.
Milkhouse Café is open 2 to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 2 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. After Labor Day the café is planning to switch to winter hours, which might be adjusted depending how things progress with the pandemic.
More information can be found on the Milkhouse Café’s Facebook page and website.
Contact Bryce Airgood at (810) 989-6202 or bairgood@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @bairgood123.
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Milkhouse Café donates over $16,000 in tips to Port Huron nonprofit Mid City Nutrition - The Times Herald
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