Well, that was frustrating. The most recent effort to raise money for Cunha's employees was a grand affair, with dozens of local bands pitching in to play for free at an all-day event. But after a monumental effort by organizer Donna Pacini, and days and days of free labor and equipment from many other Coastsiders, the whole thing raised a grand total
of ... nothing.
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In fact, Pacini says, she's somewhere around $3,000 short after putting on this event, and she wants people to buy T-shirts and CDs online to help her get closer to breaking even.
Of course, before Coastsiders agree to pony up even more money that won't go to Cunha's employees, they'll probably want to see some kind of accounting for the event, to see for themselves what happened to all of that cash.
The good news is, those Cunha's employees who lost their jobs after the May 20 fire may not need any more money.
The 20 full-time workers, first of all, received two full months of pay through the insurance company. And the Cunha's Employee Relief Fund has raised more than $200,000 to date.
That money will go to the employees in monthly installments; it's another five months or so of payroll, almost to the end of the year.
If Cunha's breaks ground in mid-August as planned, and if it only takes six to eight months to build it, as planned, then we might see Cunha's reopen in the spring, and that money will help carry the employees nicely through that time.
That money came from a number of sources: the June 10 block party, a Cetrella dinner and auction, a barn dance at the Holy Family Episcopal Church, two auctions at the Coastside Farmers Market (in the Cetrella parking lot), and postcard-sized photos sold at local stores by photographer Richard Kirchner. And, of course, from many, many individual donations.
This incredible outpouring of support for Cunha's has come under fire at times because so many other organizations and causes on the Coastside desperately need that money - and the employees, after all, could collect unemployment compensation or find other work.
But I look at it in exactly the opposite way: I think it's part of that good, collectively generous spirit on the coast.
There have been some big, upsetting things that have happened on the Coastside since the Cunha's store fire - events that needed donations and community support: Half Moon Bay High graduate Rafael Rios died in a car crash, and his friend sustained major injuries; a fire in a Canada Cove mobile home injured three people and left two of them homeless; and nine families were not only unpaid for years of work, but were left homeless in Pescadero when their employer lost his lease.
Now, none of these horrible events had the kind of fund-raising and community outpouring of grief that came with the destruction of Cunha's store.
But on each one of those events, Coastsiders rose to the occasion - in exactly the way Coastsiders do, with money and emotional support and offers of help.
And my feeling is, whether the all-day concert raised money or not, it was yet another example of the Coastside's giving spirit.
It's easy to criticize, easy to compare unrelated events and comment on them.
But it's harder to organize, to give time and money and effort, for someone else.
And that commitment and caring is something Coastsiders are particularly good at, which they proved again and again over the past few months.
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