Contributed by Lori Nevin of Urbia Fresh Cafe:

ANOTHER BUSINESS CLOSING IN DOWNTOWN KENT

 August 22, 2011, Kent, Washington — In an open letter to the Kent Community, Urbia Fresh Café would like to thank each and every one person that visited the Cafe over the last year. The business grew 53% while operating costs were lowered by 40%. The Urbia Connections Program contributed to eleven community organizations helping with support in over $2500 in cash and products. Urbia hosted many ad-hoc business meetings for Kent, and three ongoing meeting groups. Urbia participated in the Mayor’s initiative Kent 4 Health, the Kent Chamber of Commerce, and Kent Downtown Partnership.

The Cafe operated at 30% capacity. It needed to be at least 50% within the first year to continue. Therefore, this month the Café ends regular business hours and the shop is closing August 31. Urbia sends sincere thanks to those of you who were brave enough to try out yet another new restaurant at this location. Urbia will miss you all and provides a recommendation for independently owned restaurants: Maggie’s on Meeker, Golden Steer, or Pat’s Bar and Grill. These owners contribute greatly to the Kent community.

Please do your part to carry the vision of transforming downtown Kent, the sixth largest city in the state. Don’t wait until another downtown business is gone. Be a part of making Kent downtown lively again not just by spending your money locally or frequenting the national chains, but take walks through downtown, sit in the Town Square or on a corner bench, even go in to look in the independent shops and just meet the business owners. Find out how they contribute as your neighbors making a difference for downtown Kent.

Contributed by Lori Nevin of Urbia Fresh Cafe

FUN-FILLED FOLDING: ONE THOUSAND PEACE CRANES FOR JAPAN RELIEF
Sat., April 9, 9 am – 3 pm
Urbia Fresh Cafe, 415 Central Ave., Kent

With a goal of the Kent community folding at least 1000 Origami Peace Cranes, Urbia Fresh Café will be hosting a public event on Saturday April 9, 2011 from 9:00AM to 3:00PM at 415 Central Ave. N. Local community member Emiko Knowlton and others will be providing the origami paper, instructions on how to make the cranes, and personally helping each individual fold their Peace Crane. Feel free to bring your own origami (or you can recycle paper from catalogs, magazines, etc.). You can make cranes now and drop them off on the day of the event too.

This event is in support of Laura Fournier who started the project “A Thousand Paper Cranes for Japan” for the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Known as “Senbazuru” in Japanese, an ancient legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane.

Paper cranes have come to symbolize world peace and the process of healing, and as Japan picks up its pieces, this will express our wish for hope and their recovery. Fournier states, “The goal is to fold one paper crane for each life lost. I cannot do this alone. I’ve never even folded a thousand, let alone over 20,000. I need your help.” If you would like to be part of this project, please show up at this event. The paper cranes and any written well wishes will be sent to community centers and schools in Japan.

Donations will be collected to go towards Global Giving’s Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund. In addition, Urbia Fresh Café will be donating 10% of the days proceeds to the relief fund. Photographs of the event will be taken by Shawna Perko Smith of Sweet River Photography. Photographs from this event and others involved with this project will be collected and sent along with the cranes to Japan. We hope to see you there!

Everyone is invited to participate by coming in to watch, learn, and fold at 415 Central Ave. N., Kent (the old Kentucky Fried Chicken building). Call Lori Nevin at the Café, 253-220-8078, for more information.