Niles Coffeehouse is raising money for Brandywine Schools

NILES, Mich. - Since opening in March of this year, Niles' 2nd and Main Coffeehouse is already making a major impact on the community. The shop is one of six local businesses running a campaign to help raise money for Brandywine Community Schools.

Dustin Jankoviak, co-owner of 2nd & Main, says he got the idea of starting a coffee sleeve campaign after visiting coffeehouses outside of Michiana.

“I wanted to take it and ramp it up even more, which is why I got some of these friends of mine, local businesses to partner. The goal is, next year, it’d be awesome to hit up $10 to $15 dollars a sleeve,” Jankoviak said.

For customers who want an upgraded coffee sleeve for $1, the other businesses will match it and for each sleeve purchased, $8 is donated to Brandywine.

The 750 sleeves were created by the kids at Brandywine schools from kindergarten all the way to fifth grade.

“Our kids go to Brandywine. We know all the teachers at Brandywine, we know a lot of the other students. They're excited about it. Anybody that wants to support the school system is great. We try to take care of our teachers, we know they’re taking care of our kids. And we know that’s really important to us. Any teacher taking care of any student is important,” Jankoviak said.

The month-long campaign has already raised over $4,000 for the district, and with four more days left of November, Jankoviak says he hopes to sell the rest of the remaining sleeves.

In the future, Jankoviak says he hopes to collaborate with other schools.

“The first step in this campaign was doing the next right thing. We want to expand upon it, possibly having $15-$20 a sleeve. It'd be fun to raise $20, $30, $40,000 for the school system. Imagine what that can do to classrooms, school supplies or taking care of the teachers or even helping out with any of the students? To do things like that, it’s really important to us. It close to our heart. What's the point of owning a small business if we’re not doing good for our community?” Jankoviak said.

The campaign ends on November 30th. 2nd and Main Coffeehouse is located at 127 E. Main St. in downtown Niles.