Coffee shop owner closes for the day to work for terminally ill competitor

When Dave McAdams was diagnosed with terminal cancer, The Local Coffee Company which he opened with his wife Tina, had been in business for less than a year.

Upon learning Dave’s diagnosis, Tina wanted to spend every moment possible with him; when he recently went into hospice, that desire only grew. Help in achieving that goal came from another local coffeeshop owner in Oak Grove, Oregon. Pixie Adams, the owner of Moonlight Coffeehouse, decided to close down her shop for a day to help run The Local Coffee Company and fundraise for the couple's business and medical needs.

On Wednesday, Adams locked the doors at her own shop and headed over to The Local Coffee Company to work. She also created the “Moonlight Takeover Fundraiser” on social media to advertise the event. “If you don’t know, Dave McAdams has spent years working to support the local Oak Grove and Milwaukie communities through volunteer work, non-profit work, sports coaching and sadly, is now in hospice care as he bravely faces a terminal cancer diagnosis. And that mean their family needs our help!” the notice read.

“I think they thought it was a little crazy,” Adams tells Yahoo Lifestyle.

Adams, a breast cancer survivor herself, opened Moonlight two weeks after her last cancer surgery in 2017, telling Yahoo Lifestyle, “I wanted to surround myself with a good community.”

She also considered her own illness when making the decision to help out her neighbor. “I thought about what my cancer journey had been like, how hard it was to juggle and balance treatment and time with family and business,” Adams tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “I told Tina, ‘I want to do this for you so you can spend whatever time Dave has left, at home with him.’”

Adams tells Yahoo Lifestyle that Moonlight Coffeehouse is next door to the couple’s home. “They literally share a fence with me,” she says, adding that the parties have previously leaned on each other for business support. When the McAdams opened their drive-thru coffee stand, Adams gave them advice. “Dave even came here and got coffee the day he got his chemo chord put in,” she says.

Adams says Dave was so touched by the idea of the fundraiser that he cried when she asked for permission to run it.

Adams tells Yahoo Lifestyle that the event was “absolutely incredible” with cars lined up and people dropping donations into the tip jar. By the end of day, the fundraiser saw nearly $4,000 and more money has been pouring in since.

“People have been calling to donate from all over the country,” says Adams. A GoFundMe for the couple, which will go toward bills, has raised almost $12,000.

In November, a roaster donated bags of Dave’s LovedDeeply Blend coffee (according to CNN, it’s named after Dave’s “personal philosophy”) to sell at The Local Coffee Company, with 100% of proceeds going to the family. Tina says that Dave makes videos signing off with, “You are deeply loved,” reported CNN. "He just sees people for who they are," Tina reportedly said. "He makes people feel like they're the most important person to him."

Adams’ devotion to helping those in her community has lead to the birth of a hashtag #BeLikePixie which she says was started by her friends. The hope of the hashtag is “get people to be a difference maker in their community.”

“It’s always going to be about friendship over business, community over competition,” Adams told the Washington Post. “Because at the end of the day, that’s how small businesses like us are going to continue to be here.”

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