A Tennessee coffee shop run by a husband and wife is giving back to those in need in their community after Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc and devastated their city.
When Hurricane Helene devastated the community that Corey and Melissa Ackerman live in, the couple jumped in to help ease the burden of the damage done by the deadly storm. 'Once we were able to get going again, it didn't feel right to just open the doors and go back to business as usual, you know. And so I just felt compelled to just try to give back in some kind of way. And so that's when we came up with the ‘pay what you can’,' Corey Ackerman told Fox News Digital.
We've had a lot of response of people all around the country and even local people dropping off donations to be able to help keep it going for as long as possible, which is awesome,' Melissa Ackerman said about their new business model. 'And every day, we're giving away free coffee and free meals. So, I mean, it's… I don't know. It's awesome to know that in some small way we're able to help the community and give back and even just in a small way.
We had a couple of really big donors be able to help get us back on our feet and, like I cried… I couldn't even look at them. That was amazing. Just to know that in our everyday life that we're touching people's soul and their spirit to want to be able to help get us back on our feet. And without those people, we wouldn't have been able to open at all,' Melissa Ackerman continued.
think one of the things that kind of blew me away was almost immediately when we made the post, they kind of went, I guess, viral for us. I mean, it had a half million views, which is a lot for anything we've ever done,' Corey Ackerman said after announcing their new program aimed to help those in need. 'And I mean, we had donations coming in from all over the country almost immediately. People that couldn't get here to help and felt compelled to do something.
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