Q & A with Connor Garland
A beautiful brick building in the middle of Old Town, East side off the railroad tracks on Mason street houses Everyday Joe’s Coffee House. This volunteer powered coffee shop and outreach ministry of Timber Line Oldtown Church is shelter on a cold day in Fort Collins for a diverse population of people. Being close to campus guarantees some CSU student traffic, but there is more than just students. Volunteers serve everyone from Lawyers to homeless people walking in, according to the volunteer coordinator Connor Garland.
Connor sat down and talked about Everyday Joe’s, volunteering, and how both have shaped his life.
How long have you been part of the Fort Collins Community?
Connor: Well this is my second stint in Fort Collins. I grew up in Loveland and went to college at CSU from 2010–2015, but I lived away for about three and a half years. I just moved back here last April.
Were you involved at Everyday Joe’s as a student?
Back in 2012, from 2012 to 2014 I volunteered her. This is where I initially fell in love with coffee, hospitality, with this community. I had been attending church in this same space at Timberline Old Town since 2010. I hadn’t realized though that I wanted to be apart of Everyday Joe’s tell 2012.
What made you want to get involved here?
That’s a great question. Initially it was probably a little bit of friends, I had two roommates at the time who volunteered here. Wanting to be able to connect with this really cool community, they seemed all really passionate and excited hospitality and coffee. And the second part of it was a real curiosity for learning specialty coffee.
So you came back to Fort Collins and Everyday Joe’s in April, what is your position now?
I am the Everyday Joe’s associate director. As the associate director I oversee the coffee program and the volunteer program. The coffee part being what coffee we serve, what milk we use, what pastries we serve, equipment, systems as the coffee bar. I also manage and coordinate the volunteer team. We are volunteer powered, so a large part of my job is making sure the coffee bar is staffed with volunteers usually two at a time. We have 36 volunteers who volunteer here once a week for four hours. It’s also ministry so part of my job is shepherding, which is sort of a nebulous term, which looks like leading by example and modeling behavior the reflects the principles that Jesus teaches about in the Gospels.
Being a volunteer and being involved in a volunteer community, how has that effected your life?
It’s why I am where I am. I wouldn’t have come back to Fort Collins to take this job without having my first experience here as a volunteer. The discovering of how passionate you are, it was all possible because of this space and this ministry. Realizing that I loved sharing coffee and I really loved sharing spaces and brining people together, giving people a warm beverage to hold and to drink. If I hadn’t had this experience in college I don’t know where I would be.
You have talked about this community and how it’s effected you, how have you seen the volunteer staff effect the Fort Collins community and the greater Old Town community specifically?
Wo open our doors to anyone. If you are in the neighborhood you are welcome here. This is a place for christians, non-christians, you can have “wolves and lambs” is the term we throw around. You can have the lawyer working on cases next door for the county, you could have a homeless person come in off the streets being cold the night before. You can have both those people in this space. And you can have 20 year old college students, you can have young families, old people, you can have people of all shapes and sizes here and they are all welcome and beloved. So that’s one way we try and make an impact, by being inclusive and welcoming and open too all the people in this community. And the other huge part is we try and host events, we try to make a great use of our space in order to serve the community… So it’s mostly to use our space to give people a sense of community and get a taste of the community here in the neighborhood. We try and promote and work with some other non profits… we are active in those other communities.
To people considering donating time regularly, why would you say its a good thing to do?
It’s a good thing… I guess most people volunteer because not for what they can get out of it, but what they can give back to their community. Mostly people just need a good attitude and some free time in order to make their mission possible. We wouldn’t be able to operate without our volunteers. I think its some of the best experiences I have had are volunteering, just doing stuff for the sake of being a part of something bigger than the self. What it gives back to people is a purpose and a sense of belonging. So I encourage anyone who’s got time and even a lot of people are really busy to free up some time and have a volunteer opportunity. Especially in a town like Fort Collins there are so many great places to be involved, so I always encourage people to find something they are passionate about, find an organization that aligns with the personal philosophy of that person and give up four hours of your week to go do something awesome. I promise it will be rewarding in more than just one way.
