Fire on Christmas morning

Hi - Lizz here, the owner of Wild and Wonderful Play Cafe.

On Christmas morning, I awoke to learn that the Play Cafe we know and love had caught on fire and most of the property inside was destroyed.

While devastated by this tragedy, I’m so grateful to the firefighters who bravely saved the space and that no one was hurt or in the building at the time.

I have worked with a team of investigators who have likely found the cause of the fire and am relived to know that it was nothing I could have prevented, but my landlord and I can fix it going forward to ensure nothing like that happens again.

I plan to rebuild this space and bring it back as quickly as possible. It was a dream come true just to see it open, but 3 months was not nearly enough time with it.

I’m terrible at asking for help, but I’m great at being transparent: I need help rebuilding this. I did it myself the first time, but knowing I have a community now to lean on will make it stronger and better.

I’ve created a GoFundMe where you can donate if you wish. These donations will not go to my pocket - and on the note of full transparency, I have not once ever paid myself since opening this business - I put everything back into it. Instead these funds will go to the monthly bills that must continue: things like my website, POS system, electric, water, internet etc. It will also be used to spot things up front while we wait for insurance checks, and for filling any gaps where insurance may have underestimated the value of something. Anything that is donated and not used will be given to a local nonprofit.

I want to thank everyone for your grace, patience and space during this time. And I ask you to be patient a little longer while we get everything cleaned up - you can see where we’re starting from now, and I’m happy to say that we HAVE started the rebuilding process. I don’t have the timeline yet, but it’s being worked on and we’re getting there as fast as we can.