There are three trophies on the shelf behind our register. They’re not particularly big. Two of them are wooden with brass plates. One is glass. If you’re paying at the counter, you might not notice them at all. But every one of them was voted for by neighbors — and the story behind them is the whole story of what we’re trying to do.
The First: HCBI 2019 Business Adventure Award
The Huntingdon County Business & Industry Association gives out one award a year to a business that took a risk in a way that "shaped the community." In November 2019 — 11 months after we opened — they gave it to us.
Eric wasn’t going to accept the nomination. He said it felt premature. "We’re one bad winter away from closing," he told the nominating committee. They insisted. So he went to the ceremony, gave a two-minute speech that was mostly thanking Amanda, and came home with a wooden plaque.
The plaque now hangs above the espresso machine. It says: "For opening a coffee shop and laundromat in a town that had lost both."
The Second: 2023 Community Improvement Award
This one came from the Aughwick Valley Council for Community Enhancement — a mouthful of an organization that quietly does a lot of good work. They gave it to us for two reasons: the mural we’d installed the year before, and a program we’d started called "Pay-It-Forward Coffee."
The best community-recognition awards are given by people who show up every day. The other kind mostly gather dust.
Pay-It-Forward Coffee
Simple idea. Above the register hang about 30 index cards on hooks. Each card represents a pre-paid coffee. Anyone who needs one takes a card and hands it in for a free coffee — no explanation needed. Anyone who wants to help buys a card ($3.25) and hangs it up.
We started this program in December 2021. Since then, more than 4,000 pre-paid coffees have moved through those hooks. We keep no records of who takes them. We keep no records of who buys them. The whole exchange is between neighbors, and we’re just the counter it happens on.
The Third: 2024 Community Spirit Award
This is the glass trophy. It came from the Orbisonia Borough Council on the recommendation of about 100 townspeople who wrote in nominations. It doesn’t mention any specific thing we did. It says: "For being part of the fabric."
Amanda actually cried when they gave it to her. That’s the one that got her.
Why These Awards Matter (And Why They Don’t)
Here’s the honest thing: we didn’t open Jenkies Joint to win awards. We opened it because we wanted a place in Orbisonia where you could get a genuinely good cup of coffee and see your neighbors. The awards happened because that turned out to be a thing the town wanted.
What they matter for: they’re a signal that what we’re trying to do is landing. When we’re considering whether to add a service or drop one, when we’re wondering whether the Pay-It-Forward program is worth the counter space, these trophies say: yes, keep going.
What they don’t matter for: they don’t pay bills. They don’t make coffee. They don’t excuse a bad day at the espresso bar.
The Programs You Might Not Know About
A partial list of things we do that most customers don’t know about:
- Free coffee for first responders in uniform, every shift. Started in 2019.
- Employ-a-neighbor: we hire from the immediate community. All 5 of our part-time staff live within 10 minutes.
- Free café rental for community meetings: after hours, any community group can use the space with a 2-week notice.
- Wash-for-free program: low-income households can use the laundromat once a week at no charge. Applications through the Aughwick Valley Council.
- Art Wash rotating gallery: $600 commissions and print sales go to featured local artists.
- Compost partnership with Paul Family Farms. All coffee grounds, food scraps, and paper compost go back to the farm.
- School fundraiser packs: the local elementary sells our whole-bean coffee for their PTA. We give them a 40% margin.
What "Community First" Actually Means To Us
It’s become a phrase every small business uses. We don’t love using it, but here’s the version that’s true:
Community first means the town does better when we’re open. That’s it. It’s not a virtue signal. It’s a business philosophy. If our being here makes Orbisonia measurably better — fresher food, warmer rooms, more art, neighbors bumping into each other — then the money follows and we keep going. If we’re just extracting revenue from a location, then we’re a chain, and someone else will do that better.
Every decision we make gets filtered through that: does this make Orbisonia better, or does it just make Jenkies bigger? Sometimes those are the same. Often they’re not.
Why We Tell You This
Because you’re part of it. Every time you come in, every time you tell a friend, every time you buy a bag of beans instead of a supermarket brand — that’s the awards, actually. That’s the whole thing.
The trophies on the shelf are lovely. The neighbors are the whole point.