For the past month, UBC Sprouts has been running a crowdfunding campaign to purchase equipment and furniture for their upcoming new location in the Student Life Building. They’ve raised over $7,000 in donations so far—but if they can’t reach their $10,000 goal by May 5th, they’ll lose all their pledges.
“It’s looking pretty good, but we’ll definitely need that final push,” said Meryn Corkery, the outgoing president of Sprouts.
The volunteer-run sustainable food café used to operate in the basement of the old SUB, but they moved into the Pit Pub in September 2016 after the old SUB closed for renovations. When they weren’t able to secure the Pit kitchen again for the 2017-2018 academic year, they closed down and decided to focus on the opening of their new location in the Student Life Building. After multiple delays, they will finally re-open in July 2018.
However, they still need to purchase new furniture and kitchen equipment. In keeping with their community-based, non-profit ethos, they decided to host an online crowdfunding campaign to raise the funds.
“Thinking of the amount of money that we had to raise was a little daunting, and we thought that things like crowd-funders were a really accessible way to do that,” said incoming Sprouts President Sarah Siska.
“We need to pretty much build a cafe from the ground up, which is a lot of money and ten thousand dollars doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
Sprouts hosted a launch party back in March to promote the campaign, which raised around $4,000 within 24 hours. They’ve since been promoting the campaign through paid advertisements, media callouts, sharing it on social media and reaching out to local businesses for sponsorship opportunities.
“It reaches out to a different group of people that might not normally see it on the Sprouts’ Facebook page, or on the Sprouts’ Instagram,” said Corkery.
Donors can also get a variety of rewards. For example, people who donate $45 can get a Sprouts t-shirt, while individuals or businesses who donate $150 will have their name displayed as a “Bronze Level Sponsor” in their new location.
Sprouts is using the Vancouver-based crowdfunding platform Wayblaze to collect the funds, which only charges people the money they pledged once a campaign hits its goal. This means that if Sprouts’ campaign doesn’t reach $10,000 by May 5th, they won’t receive any funds and donors won’t be charged.
To raise the remaining amount, Sprouts has been reaching out to more businesses and has floated the idea of hosting another event, but nothing has been confirmed.
“We have no idea how likely that’s gonna be given our really short time frame,” said Corkery.
Although Sprouts did not reach out to the AMS for assistance in their campaign, the recent approval of a Sustainable Food Access Fund — which will add $0.35 towards students’ AMS fees — in this years’ AMS referenda will subsidize their new location to ensure that their services remain affordable.
In contrast to the cramped-but-cozy nature of their former location, Sprouts’ new home in the Student Life Building will include a seating area for 40 to 50 people and possibly a large communal table. The walls of the room will include a timeline mural of Sprouts’ history as well as student artwork.
“We’ve had the collaboration with the pottery club ongoing, so we might try to up that or reach out to students — whether they’re creating functional art or wall art or wearable art — and just highlight the voices in our community,” said Siska.
However, if Sprouts can’t get the remaining funds in by their campaign’s end, they’re going to have trouble being able to afford the proper equipment.
“If we don’t [reach our goal], then that could be a big make-it-or-break-it for when we open,” said Siska. “It won’t shut down the organization by any means, but it will determine whether or not we have the funds to buy things that are integral to us opening and us running a café.”
Cookery expressed similar concerns.
“If we don’t reach our goal, it’ll be like, ‘uh, we can do coffee and tea?’ It just won’t be a full operation.”