ROSSFORD — It had all the trappings of a classic school book fair: table after table snaking around a gymnasium, heaped with children’s books, bookmarks, fidget toys, stickers, keychains, colorful pencils and gel pens.
Families eagerly loaded up on books and other goodies inside Rossford United Methodist Church, but there was no cash register at the exit. Everything was free, even the tote bags distributed on the way in and slices of pizza offered on the way out.
The Neighbors Coffee and Books, a shop located across from the church on Superior Street in downtown Rossford, organized and sponsored the “$0 Book Fair” Sept. 20 in honor of Dolly Parton, the late country music legend who gifted more than 300 million books to young children through her Imagination Library program.
After Parton’s passing last month, the coffee shop and used book store held “A Day for Dolly” to raise money for the singer’s Imagination Library program. The owners concocted a special “Dolly inspired refresher” with coconut, strawberry, vanilla lemonade with pink glitter and posted on the shop’s Facebook page that $1 from every “Cup of Ambition” would be donated in Parton’s honor.
That day, three customers made monetary donations in honor of Dolly to purchase books for kids from the shop’s used book store. The first two donations were for $20 and $25, and then a third customer donated $204 — the equivalent of 408 books, at the shop’s price point of 50 cents apiece.
“After that it’s just like, we can’t sell these books anymore. They became free and we want to just keep them free,” said Chris Murphy, who owns the shop with his wife Elise Murphy and their friends and next door neighbors Ron and Lauren Rasberry.
Hoping to expand their small children’s section, they put out a call on social media for donations of kids’ books. The response from the community was so immediate and overwhelming, however, that the owners quickly hatched a bigger idea.
Reminiscing about school book fairs, they recalled the excitement of circling the items they wanted in the flyers and the disappointment of not having enough money to afford those items when it came time to shop. ”It was a bummer,” said Chris Murphy.
The owners came up with a plan to throw a free book fair, complete with all the stickers, notebooks, pens and other tiny treasures known to delight young shoppers at the traditional school event.
“We’re putting this together for the community,” said Ron Rasberry. “They’ll get whatever they want. There’s no limit; there’s no price tag.”
Someone gifted them a storage unit where they accumulated children’s books over the past several weeks. When rain threatened their plan to set up the fair in the church parking lot across the street, one of their regulars who belongs to the congregation offered them a space to use inside the church.
The Murphy’s daughter, Elowyn, 10, was among the helpers who organized the books and trinkets for the fair. She was also excited about her own finds: four books from the Heartbreaker series, a “cool gem pencil” and a “cute cat keychain.”
“I think this event is a very helpful event for people and also for helping the community,” said Elowyn.
Ron Rasberry said they will most likely do another free book fair because they still have about 1,000 more books in storage. The Neighbors Coffee and Books has a few other events in the works first, though, including a “friendsgiving” potluck for the community and a Christmas tree giveaway around the holidays. They are beginning to accumulate Christmas trees in their storage unit now for families who cannot afford a tree.
It’s been a whirlwind for a shop that has only been open for about three months and for two couples who just celebrated their one year “friend-versary” in August.
“This would have never happened if me and my wife hadn’t bought the house next door to these guys,” said Ron Rasberry. “We are literally next door neighbors, and that’s why we named it the Neighbors Coffee Shop.”
The business has been successful enough that they have already outgrown their space and are targeting Nov. 1 to expand by moving next door.
”There’s so much negative going on in the world,” said Chris Murphy. He said their goal is simply to bring back some positivity and return to a time when people were neighborly. “We make a really good cup of coffee, we make a lot of really good drinks, but people come in because it’s a community.”
