The Cupbearer Cafe

Hi, I'm Anne Pater with Auburn Rain Street and today I'm with Andy Foster from Inspiration Ministries downtown Auburn. So tell us a little bit about what you have going on in this beautiful facility. Well thank you so much, Anne. My name is Andy. I'm the president of Inspiration Ministries and if you don't know where we're at, we are actually on the north side of the courthouse just directly across. We've got about a 40 foot storefront and we have been here for almost 10 years. And it has been such an honor and a privilege to serve the Auburn community. And Inspiration Ministries over these last 10 years has been so blessed to be able to champion things Our tagline is serving the least, the last and the lost. And this coffee shop has given us such a unique opportunity to intersect with so many people throughout the day. And when people are hurting, they come in and we have an opportunity to pray or direct them to services. And so it has been so awesome to be here. And besides that, we make a great cup of coffee. So we love being here in downtown and celebrating the amount of time that we've been here has really been awesome. And I'm so excited to introduce my good friend who has just become the cafe manager this last year. Him and his wife, they do a tremendous job. But Anthony has an incredible story of transformation and he does a great job at the cafe. So I'd As Andy mentioned, I am Anthony Ponds. I'm the manager of the Cupbearer Cafe. And again, being located here in downtown Auburn, it is a blessing to be able to serve as the headquarters of inspiration ministries. I myself am definitely a recipient of the blessing of this ministry. Having actually my own story bring me from Florida here to Auburn, Indiana to manage the Cupbearer. One of the blessings of the Cupbearer Cafe is, as Andy mentioned, we are not only a coffee shop that services a product to the community, we're also a ministry that actually helps the vulnerable community. We also do not look for just for the community to come to us in our doors. We So we do many things We have a drink trailer in which we put on events. We will get out to the community of service. The most special things to me about the Cupbearer Cafe is the fact that we see face after face who are in here looking for something more than just a hot coffee. But they're looking for their need to be met. And it is such a privilege to have a door that is available to say, we are here for you. We're not just hopefully here to service something for you to get from us, but we are here for you. We want to know your needs. We want to know your hurts, your habits, your hangups. And we want to make sure that you get help right here at the Cupbearer. So not only does it extend to the community, we service the residents of our program and we service the staff here at our headquarters and we have been blessed to reach into other communities such as our second location at Butler. So we are looking to continue what door God will open for us. And it's a blessing to be a part of the Cupbearer. Thank you. This facility is large and I know you can host a lot of other things here. What all do you have going on or how can people utilize your facility? Thanks for asking, Ann. We have a really unique space here in this three-story building. We got 5,000 square foot on the first floor and we're actually standing on the stage that has a lot of technology and TVs. We're probably one of the few locations in downtown Auburn that can host a group of 50 or even 80 people. We've had weddings here, we've had wedding receptions here. And so we have a really great space. We actually have four or five conference rooms upstairs and so we love being able to serve groups to come in and have their small groups, their big groups. We have live music on the weekends, And we have bands that come in on Fridays and Saturdays. One of the coolest things that we have is celebrate recovery right here in downtown Auburn on a Thursday night. And you'd think recovery meeting and things And in it is an awesome time where you will see faces that have just been impacted by change. And it is so cool to see that. So we have a really unique space. We love people using it. We've got books for sale in the bookstore. We have a great product with the coffee. But we love being here downtown Auburn. Thank you so much.