The Kindness Matters Podcast
So. Much. Division. Let's talk about how to change that. Re-engage as neighbors, friends, co-workers and family. Let's set out to change the world. Strike that. Change A World. One person at a time, make someone's life a little better and then do it again tomorrow and the day after that, through kindness.
Kindness is a Super-Power that each of us has within us. It is so powerful it has the potential to change not only your life but those around you, too. Let's talk about kindness.
The Kindness Matters Podcast
Brewing Hope: Coffee, Community, and Compassion
"What does it mean to truly feel called to serve?" Rob Bergfalk, founder of Compassion Church and Compassion Coffee in Anoka, Minnesota, answers this question through powerful action rather than mere words.
When news reports in 2018 showed hundreds of people living in tent cities along Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis, something stirred deeply within Rob. As a youth pastor with 12 years of restaurant industry experience, he found himself uniquely positioned to respond. The result? A visionary model combining faith community and social enterprise to address homelessness through dignity-giving employment and skills training.
Rob takes us through his three-year journey from initial calling to opening Compassion Church in 2021 near Stepping Stone Emergency Housing, a 66-bed homeless shelter. Understanding that sustainable impact requires sustainable funding, Rob and his wife Kelsey developed an innovative plan: create a coffee shop that would both employ people experiencing homelessness and generate revenue for their mission.
The path wasn't immediate. They started small with a coffee cart at local events like Anoka's famous Halloween celebrations before securing their permanent location in late 2023. Today, Compassion Coffee not only serves premium beverages from award-winning Silverbird Roasting but provides comprehensive training in barista skills, customer service, budgeting, conflict resolution, and other essential life skills.
What makes their approach particularly effective is the collaborative community network they've built with organizations like Hope for Youth, Family Promise, and Stepping Stone. Together, they create pathways of support for people of all ages experiencing housing insecurity.
"I learned that when I thought I was coming to be the hero, that's not the case," Rob shares. "If you enter with humility, you actually grow." This perspective flips the traditional charity model on its head, revealing how serving others transforms both the helper and the helped.
Looking for inspiration about using business as a force for good? Want to discover how your skills might address community needs? This episode offers practical insights on creating sustainable models for social change through relationship and dignity.
#homeless #hope #coffee
This podcast is a proud member of the Mayday Media Network. If you have an idea for a podcast and need some production assistance or have a podcast and are looking for a supportive network to join, check out maydaymedianetwork.com.
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It's one thing to highlight the kindness that we see in the world, but it's another to, as I put in many of my social media posts, #bethechange. I am donating all of my royalties from the sale of my book, Change A World; In Order to Change The World to local and national non-profits. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Well, hello there and welcome. You are listening to the Kindness Matters podcast and I am your host, mike Rathbun. What is this podcast all about? It's about kindness. It's a pushback against everything negative that we see in the news and on social media today, and it's a way to highlight people, organizations that are simply striving to make their little corner of the world a little better place. If you want to join in on the conversation, feel free, Go ahead and follow us on all of your social media feeds. We're on Facebook, instagram, tiktok. We're even on LinkedIn under Mike Rathbun Check us out. Uh, we're even on linkedin under mike rathbun. Check us out. And, in the meantime, so sit back, relax, enjoy and we'll get into the kindness matters podcast.
Speaker 1:Hey, welcome everybody to the show. Thank you so much for for taking 30-ish minutes of your time and spending it with us, with me and my guests today, as I always do, I will remind you that if there's something that you hear in this podcast that inspires you, that moves you, that motivates you, please make sure to share this podcast with your friends and family, your work colleagues I've started saying strangers on the street. That may or may not be comfortable for you, but you know. If the spirit moves you right, feel free to share it. I would greatly appreciate it and hopefully your friends and family that you share it with will appreciate it as well.
Speaker 1:So have you ever felt called to do something? And I always kind of scoffed at this when I was younger, this notion of saying, you know, I really feel like this is something I need to be doing. But as I get older, I kind of feel that it's actually a thing, and maybe this podcast, maybe that's my thing, maybe this podcast, maybe that's my thing. Well, I'll tell you what. My guest today is Rob Bergfolk I really have to enunciate there, I apologize Rob who is the founder of Compassion Church and Compassion Coffee in Anoka, minnesota, and I find his story amazing and uplifting, and I think you will too, and you were felt called to something right Rob.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, compassion, church and compassion coffee is a result of me sensing a call. For me, obviously, as a pastor, this call is from God and but I recognize, you know, people even that don't believe in God. Right, like there's, I think, people, I think we can all relate to that there's, there's a greater purpose in life that we can, that we can find, and so, for me, my relationship with god, um, that, yeah, that's resulted in a very specific calling and a vision that he is, that he has given me, that that which is the result of that is compassion, church and Coffee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. You know what? I never stopped to think that maybe an agnostic or an atheist might be called to do something. That's okay Interesting. I'm going to have to think about that a little bit more. But let's talk about you because you're why we're here about that a little bit more. But let's talk about you because you're why we're here.
Speaker 2:So this started this started for you kind of in 2018. Is that right? Yeah, I mean so my story. There's a lot of history from before that that has kind of resulted, but specifically for about compassion, specifically for about compassion. Uh, yeah, in 2018, um, there were the homeless camps happening off of high watha avenue, um, and news you know the different news outlets were reporting on this all throughout that summer and fall, and you know there were hundreds of tents, uh, hundreds of people living what they were calling tent cities, and so they had propane tanks like kitchen, like you know, it looked like a city of just with a bunch of tents.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, and that broke my heart, and I was reading a book at the same time and about what it looks like to be the church, and I sensed this call from God that we were supposed to start a church to care for the homeless population, and I didn't really know exactly what that meant, but that was kind of the start of like, okay, I wonder what that looks like. I wonder if we should do this, if we can do this, and that started a journey of just kind of listening and trying to be obedient to what that looked like. So, but, yeah, that started back in 2018. And we didn't start the church till the summer of 2021. And so there was really a three-year process of really discerning should we do this and is this what we're supposed to do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and that's not something you rush into right. Yeah, absolutely, and we've talked about the homeless before. I've talked with Steve Griffiths you know, steve, I'm sure and Darlene Sparks Washington Dr Darlene Sparks Washington, I had her on recently and a theme that kind of runs through, that is how the homeless can be right out in the open but invisible. But you saw them, yeah, and you felt, dare I say, compassion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I, and I saw him through, um. I think it's important to note too, like I didn't, I didn't, I didn't see anybody because I was driving down, like what you know, we live in Champlin, um and so we stopped because there was awareness of people were talking about it, right, people like the news stations were talking about it. Right, people like the news stations were talking about it. And so, yeah, there's this awareness and that's part of what we're hoping to do with Compassion. Is helping like a big piece, is helping care for people in need, is helping people be aware that there are actually people in need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, for sure, and they were talking about it again this winter. Right, because there have been how many homeless encampments, and I don't know for whatever reason. This seems to happen most in Minneapolis and St Paul. Yeah, but there were fires in these camps because of the propane tanks that they were using, and you brought that up just a second ago. So I mean, they were back in the news and yeah, I don't. So that had nothing to do with anything, I think. But just going to your point about compassion, going to your point about compassion, so can you walk us through, kind of, what the lead up from 2018 to 2021 looked like? How did you prepare for this mission?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was a youth pastor at the time and before that I think it's important to note too before I got into ministry in 2016,. But before that I was in the restaurant industry for 12 years, so I was in the restaurant industry right out of high school. And so in 2018, when we're kind of just thinking like, okay, what does it look like to actually start a church and how do you practically care for the homeless population as a church, my wife and I, about a year I think, we talked and it was the following August in 2019, where we had kind of came up with this idea of, well, what if we open like a coffee shop and that is a place where the church can meet, you can save money on renting a building. As a pastor, part of my salary could come from the coffee shop, so you can actually reach the poor and the church can be made up of the poor and still be financially stable. And we really liked that idea, not only from a missional aspect as a church, but you could also hire people that are part of the homeless population and practically make a difference that way, and all while spreading awareness of homelessness. And so we really loved that idea and got excited about that and so that was 2019. And so we then we're part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination and so there's different people you talk to about you know, hey, we're thinking about starting a church, like the church that we are part of kind of started that conversation for us, and so there was a big assessment that her and I went through for three and a half days where it really kind of it's kind of like a really intense marriage retreat that the denomination helps you discern Should you be planting a church. Is this wise, like well, you know, are you fit to do that? And so we got the light to go to continue to move forward, and so we actually thought we would end up downtown.
Speaker 2:And as we were looking so we live in Champlin and as we were looking at different places, someone, dan Adler, at Heart of the City Music Factory in Anoka, had reached out and was curious, reached out to see if there were any church planters in the area. And we looked up Heart of the City Music Factory. It's right next to Hope for Youth, in the same building, which is an organization that cares for youth experiencing homelessness. In the same building, which is an organization that cares for youth experiencing homelessness. We didn't know.
Speaker 2:Stepping Stone Emergency Housing even exists, which is a homeless shelter in Anoka that houses 66 people at a given time, and so we were just kind of blown away and just felt this confirmation, over and over and over again, that we were supposed to be in Anoka and really, especially with suburban homelessness, as you mentioned, you don't see. You don't necessarily see people experiencing homelessness. You do, but not to the extent that it actually exists. And so part of it for us was we can help, but we can also help spread awareness. So, yeah, so the church started in the summer of 2021. We purposely met close to the shelter so that we can build relationships with the residents. We provide transportation for the residents to the church, but all the while we were trying to figure out what does it look like to actually open a coffee house, turns out you need money to do that.
Speaker 1:What.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no way. So very quickly we decided to just start on the small side, start a coffee cart. We could start a coffee cart with $10,000 to $15,000 and start at least employing one person and kind of start building a customer database and just figure out what we were doing. And then last year at the beginning of 2024, we found a location for the coffee house and signed a lease in May. We opened at the end of October, so it's called Compassion Coffee and so now, as of today, um, the coffee house is open Monday through Saturday. We're able to employ people affected by homelessness. Sunday mornings the church meets, uh, there, and and we're living out the vision, the dream that god had given us.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, six, six years ago, which is six and a half years ago, which is kind of crazy and it feels surreal yeah, I'll bet, I'll bet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, yeah, that's, that's so cool. So when you had the coffee cart would you go to but uh, I suppose you to events, kind of like a food truck.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our first event was a Halloween event with the Anoka Lions. They invited us they have a big white tent at the Halloween festivities and they invited us to set up, and so that was our very first event. It was october of 2022. Um, after that, we started doing different ones. You know, there's a holiday market that the noca hosts as well. Um, we participated in the farmer's market, so we would set up, um, a little, a little stand on wednesday afternoons. Um, yeah, we would. We started getting booked at at different like weddings and different kind of events where people will hire us schools, the school system so people would, schools would actually hire us for, like, a teacher appreciation event, and so that was that was really cool. So, yeah, it was kind of like word of mouth and we're just, you know, we were open to pretty much every opportunity and we some events, you made money, money.
Speaker 2:Some events, you chalk it up as a marketing opportunity, right for a learning experience and you, you know, you just kind of get from there.
Speaker 1:Creating awareness, creating word of mouth yeah, that's um. And for folks who might be listening that don't know, anoka, minnesota. The town has a lot of events and they are the Halloween capital of the world. So I kind of giggled to myself when you said their first event was a Halloween. So I mean they do Halloween like nobody else I've ever seen, ever. So now you've got your spot in downtown. I'm guessing they always have one or two big sidewalk type. I mean, yeah, yeah, there's um, yeah, they do.
Speaker 2:They do quite a few large events downtown. We're actually, we're, we're in Anoka and we're off main street, but we're, we're, we're in Anoka, but, and we're off main street but we're, we're actually like just outside the downtown area, so we're not part of you know, there's like a they call it, discover Anoka, where it's like all these shops and restaurants and stuff that are like part of the downtown group we're on the west end of main street and so down, like, if you're going, if you're from downtown Anoka, if you you go down Main Street, there's like a Dairy Queen. On the other side there's a Maurer Chevrolet. We're down at the old, like Anoka.
Speaker 2:Shopping Center next to Crown Bakery.
Speaker 1:Okay, I had you on the other end, I had you on the east end. I don't know why, when I was thinking about it, I was.
Speaker 2:I mean I know, yeah, no, it's all good. I mean it just opened.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so we're. So you're on the west side of the river, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we took over the old. It was a Jelly Bean and Julia BBQ restaurant and they moved to Coon Rapids and so we took their old location. Okay, so do you have a kitchen there? Then time we use the actual kitchen with the hoods is what we bake cookies, um and uh. So we have somebody that it's his family recipe, it's called Mr Chipper's cookies. So he makes a cookie dough and then we bake the cookies, um, and they're delicious cookies, um. But we don't like.
Speaker 2:We're right next to crown bakery, you know they. We have a, we have a partnership with them where they provide all our baked goods and they also sell sandwiches, and so we also want to be honoring to them and not try to be competition to them, and so I think, as time goes on, we'll kind of figure out like what food looks like for us. But yeah, right now it's mostly coffee and pastries that we serve, and we really do strive to have high quality, high quality coffee. The coffee that we serve is from Silverbird Roasting, and he's a local roaster in St Anthony. He's won national championships and I mean it's really yeah, it's really high quality coffee, and so we really do. You know, we take pride in serving a high quality drink.
Speaker 1:So, as a former Catholic kid, this is not your church basement coffee. This is the good stuff. This is not your coffee and donuts after mass coffee?
Speaker 2:No, yeah it's good coffee and one of the funny things is.
Speaker 1:You have an experienced employee, though right doing the coffee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lily, she's our operations director, so she runs the coffee house. So she's our operations director, um, so she runs the coffee house, so she knows what she's doing. If you ever see like the really cute latte art, that's most likely her. If you see like stuff that looks more abstract, that's probably me um, making it. But, um, yeah, so she does. She does a really good job, um, and and's part of like you know, when we employ people, we want to, we want to be able to offer skills barista skills, life skills but some of the fun stuff, like the artsy thing, is learning how to do latte art, and that is I mean, that really is a skill to learn, and so we're still working on that as well, but we'd love to do like a latte art class at some point too.
Speaker 1:That would be so much fun and do some fun community events yeah. So, yeah, let's talk about the skills, Because you do you hire people experiencing homelessness, right? Yeah, and you, I mean that's part of your whole mission is giving them skills, work experience that they can take and put on a resume and take forward with them into life, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, we're currently working out. So right now it's pretty informal as it relates to the training and the skills that we want to work on, but we're working on a four-month kind of like a cohort style. We were actually inspired by Wild Flyer Coffee. They're in Minneapolis, in St Paul. They have a couple of shops and they hire youth experiencing homelessness and they actually have like a cohort that people go through and they do a phenomenal job, and so we've been inspired by how they are doing that, and so we're not like taking their thing, but we're kind of like figuring out what does it look like for us and what is working for other places and how do we incorporate that? And do we do a cohort or is it just kind of like an individual style, and so we're kind of working out the kinks there.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, we want to offer the barista skills and life skills. So you know, when I say like barista work skills, that's, um, how do you work the cash register? How do you make a drink Right? How do you brew coffee, um, and that sort of thing. How customer service skills, how do you, even when you're having a bad day, how do you interact with someone where you can, you know, smile and not fake for people and be aware of verbal you know the verbal interactions but also the nonverbal gestures that customers make and just helping become aware of some of those things. And then, yeah, and safety and sanitation and things like that For life skills.
Speaker 2:You know that is more of like all right, what does budgeting look like? How are you managing your money? Things like that, where you know even things like meal planning and how do you decide what groceries to buy and how to, how to plan out your meals and how to when you have conflict with someone, what do you? What do you do if someone blows up at you? How do you? And so you know we can kind of distinguish between hard skills and soft skills of how do we work with people and how do we develop that. And it's not and it's to you know. So our vision is to empower people affected by homelessness. Our hope is that we're able to teach those things and that, as people learn those things, that they're able to take them with whatever it is that they want to do in life. Not necessarily that we expect them to stay at compassion coffee forever, but maybe that means that they'll go and start their own business, or go to college or, you know, their next job, that they have these skills, that that they're, you know, better equipped, um, but we just, yeah, we want to add value to their lives.
Speaker 1:Oh for sure, and all of that stuff is so important to have. I'm not sure that kids leaving high school have some of those skills that you guys teach.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's so essential yeah.
Speaker 2:In my restaurant days. You know, I I worked for a restaurant called Qdoba Mexican Grill and I worked with a lot of different people and I one of the things that I've that I just I found fascinating is the amount of like conversations you can have about normal everyday life. While you're cooking chicken or washing dishes or scrubbing the floor like, you end up talking about who knows what right, right, and so one of the.
Speaker 1:I do not possess that skill.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I really value is like you get to, you get to know somebody's life story and you just talk about life, right, like coworkers. It's just yeah, you just end up talking about life, and so we also see, I think there's a lot of value in just the skills that we can provide, but being able to show that you actually care about somebody and that you're in their corner and that you'll encourage them on a bad day and that they know that they have somebody to go to when they've got questions or they have issues, somebody to go to when they've got questions or they have issues. I think that alone having that kind of relationship outside of the skills is really, is really crucial. And so we also want to provide that of just like hey, like when life just hits you, like you know, you can call us, you know that we actually we do care. We're not, you're not just an employee, you're part of this compassion family and so we so yeah, we, we that's a big value that we have as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Oh, wow, that's so cool. Yeah, Because have you? You haven't really been open long enough to go through a couple of employees and have them leave and then come back and say you know, you guys helped so much?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do. We have had with the coffee cart. You know, we have had an employee that we've hired off and on, kind of as they've gone through things, and so we've learned a little bit of that and being able to see and I think you know we're able to see like some of the impact. But I think, greater than that, one of the things I appreciate about Inoka is that there's a lot of organizations doing work, and so when we partner with Hope for Youth or Family Promise or Stepping Stone, it's kind of a collection of like hey, there's all these different places that are caring for people and it's cool to be able to see collectively how you can make a difference as a community. So it is fun to celebrate.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of overlap there. We even see yeah, I was going to say there's even. You know there's people that we'll recognize. Both Lily and I worked at the shelter and so there will be people that we recognize that will come in to the coffee house and people that are experiencing homelessness and just want to sit, and you know we're able to offer just a free coffee and they can just sit in a quiet space, especially in the winter, you know it's warm and being able to just like be be in a space and know that they're safe, like I think that's that's valuable, and so I think being able to work with other organizations to be able to care for the community is great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you were just kind of talking about something I wanted to bring up. Um, the collaboration between different organizations is so cool. I know one of my guests you are working with right now, jill Morrison from Be Memorable Marketing, and that just because you work with a lot of other different organizations there in Anoka to make all this magic happen, right?
Speaker 2:I mean Hope for Youth, yeah, to make all this magic happen, right, I mean hope for youth, yeah, and yeah it's. I mean it's a, it is a, it's a community effort and, um, you know, I I so for, for lily and I, we both worked at stepping stone uh, for a while she was the intake specialist, uh for specialist for her time there, and I did a combination of some different things, but I think one of the things that even Stepping Stone just provided us was we learned a lot of how to care for people experiencing homelessness and even just learning and practicing listening. Like you know, we learned to listen growing up, but like being able to just be quiet and not say anything and listen to someone for 10 minutes and care for them afterwards and, like you know, simple things of using their, are able to go and volunteer. There's practical things that you get to experience where you're not only just helping somebody but you're actually growing as a person. In my experience being around people experiencing homelessness, I actually grew physically. I grew a ton through that, and so I learned a lot.
Speaker 2:A lot of times, I think we think like, oh, I'm going to come and be the hero, and I just don't think that's the case. Like I think, if you enter it with humility, that you actually grow. And so I think all these different organizations, family, promise our parents and kids experiencing homelessness. You've got Hope for Youth, which is the youth, and then you've got Stepping Stone, which is 18 plus, and so you have all the age ranges and they all. You know they do very different things and yet collectively they care for the unsheltered, our unsheltered friends. And so I think when people are able to learn, hey, we can all make a big difference when we work together.
Speaker 1:I think that's huge I think I just learned something family pathways is that, see, because I only know them as like a discount store oh uh, family promise, not family path oh family.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah. Yeah so they're in Coon Rapids, but they're actually building like an apartment style kind of shelter where families can live, and yeah, so they're. I mean they're doing really important work as well. And those are just you know, those are just the three that we really have ongoing conversations with.
Speaker 1:But there's many more organizations that I'm sure you've.
Speaker 2:you know you've met lots of other people doing a lot of work as well that it's just like which is good. It's also like kind of sad that we need so many organizations because of how many people are you know are in need, but obviously we're very thankful that those organizations exist as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's a. It's a scary time and I mean I've I've spoken with, do you know, susan Dearson? She used to run NACE and now she runs Meals on Wheels.
Speaker 2:I know of them. I don't know if I've actually met her.
Speaker 1:Okay, we were just talking about how, you know, a lot of people right now are, like one medical emergency, away from needing the services that you guys provide, you know, or needing the assistance of a food shelf or what have you. And it's sad that we're in that position, but it's good to know we have guys like you and Lily and, I'm sorry, your wife, my wife.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife is Kelsey Yep and then Lily.
Speaker 2:Kelsey yeah, kelsey, and then Lily. We're in the coffee house. So Kelsey does a lot of the behind the scenes, so her and I both serve as, like, co-executive directors. She works for Magnify Financial Credit Union, which also does a lot of giving back to the community, and so it's cool how our lives have kind of uh overlapped in that way as well. But she does, uh, all the behind the scenes stuff of marketing and updating the website and you know things like that as well. Um, so yeah, there's lots of, lots of different people helping in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, this is so amazing no-transcript.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1:No worries, take care and we will talk to you soon. All right, bye, bye, bye. I want to thank you for taking this time to listen to the episode with my guest, rob Bergfolk of Compassion Coffee and Compassion Church in Anoka. I hope you were able to take something positive from the time you spent with us. Maybe you'll be inspired, maybe you'll be motivated, maybe you'll be moved. If you experienced any of those positive feelings, please, please, please, consider sharing this podcast with your friends and family. I'm always striving to offer you a better podcast. So you know, give me some feedback, let me know how you think I'm doing. Email me, leave me a message on my socials. It would mean the world. Also. Feel free to follow us on our socials like Facebook, instagram, linkedin and TikTok.
Speaker 1:This podcast is part of the Mayday Media Network. If you have an idea for a podcast and need some production assistance, or you already have a podcast and are looking for a supportive network to join, check out maydaymedianetworkcom and check out the many different shows like Afrocentric Spoil, my Movie Generation Mixtape In a Pickle Radio Show, wake Up and Dream with D'Anthony Palin, stax O'Pax and the Time Pals and the Time Pals. We will be back again next week with a new episode, and we would be honored if you would join us. You've been listening to the Kindness Matters Podcast. I'm your host, mike Rathbun. Have a fantastic week.
