Something to Celebrate
Small Business Award
By Melissa Wagoner
A la year w ofApandemic y S Aclosures, c c ea wildfire ptiNg After evacuation and an ice storm, the Covered ANd All typeS oF Bridge Café has kept a steady hand. Now it is being awarded the 2020 Small Business Award by the Stayton Sublimity Chamber of Commerce. “Despite all odds, they embody what it means to be an overcomer,” Carmélle Bielenberg, the president and CEO of the chamber explained. “Covered Bridge LanceasLarge, Hanhlocal Ramirez, Cafe stands an exampleKelly to other businesses of and MDresilience, innovationPA-C community service.”
Covered Bridge Café keeps on giving During the Labor Day wildfires, Sessums directed her staff to give free meals and $100 gift certificates to those customers most affected.
New pAtieNtS iNSurANceS
With COVID-19 restrictions putting a halt to indoor dining during November, Sessums still found a way to give out 1,678 free dinners.
Fife, Carl WMELISSA Leder,WAGONER The Maria Covered Bridge Café team. FNP-BC
PA-C
Sessums feared she would lose everything she’d worked for during the past 14 years.
That was true, even before the pandemic. “The first shut down created some Over the years, owner Cari Sessums has difficulties between my business partner and volunteered with the Marion County I,” Sessums recalled. “So, I sat in this empty Sheriff’s Office, Narcotic’s Treatment Anonymous, andof Chronic Illness dining room and prayed.” supported youth athletics and local charities. And the Covered Bridge such Café provides a as Diabetes/Hypertension Sessums was seeking was the answer to a free pre-Thanksgiving meal – held each year she take out the bank on the Wednesday before ThanksgivingCare – Preventative •question Sports– should Medicine loan required to buy out her partner during for the community at large. a time when she was almost guaranteed to Pediatrics • Geriatrics • Womens’ Health Care have no income? That’s when a man walked When COVID-19 restrictions shut down all restaurants in March 2020, owner Cari in thatAssisted changed herWeight life. FirstLine Therapy™ (Physician Loss)
General Medicine
“He said, ‘I heard your business partner left. Why don’t you buy her out?’ And he slid a check across the table. It was $20,000,” Sessums recalled. “He said, ‘God has blessed me and we love this restaurant and seeing you here with your daughter.’” Shocked, Sessums thought to refuse. But the man insisted, explaining she could pay him back once the pandemic was through. “I said, ‘What if I don’t make it?’” Sessums remembered. “He said, ‘You’ll make it.’”
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Students who no longer had access to school-based meals and the linemen and arborists working during the February ice storm also have been the beneficiaries of Covered Bridge generosity. “My core values are based on the community, ” Sessums explained. “The Covered Bridge Cafe is a special place where good food, good service and pleasant atmosphere meet to create an experience you want to make a tradition,” Marion County Sheriff Joe Kast wrote. “Top it off with great people who are truly committed to creating a place where everyone is welcome, and you’ve got something worth raving about. It’s no surprise they’re being recognized with this award.”
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