The Rampage #4 March 2020

The Rampage

Student Spotlights

10

••• “We are creating this really unique e-commerce site that allows you to taste all these craft roasters from all over Appalachia that are super unique,” O’Donnell said. “Like 25/30 Expresso, their pitch is they only do women-owned farms in South America, fair-trade practices, and they have a cherry apple brown sugar roast. Like where do you find that?” O’Donnell said that he did not care much for coffee before pursuing his small business. When asked why he chose coffee as his trade he responded by saying, “I ask myself this every day.” When making the decision to pursue this business, O’Donnell said he was inspired by a person that did the unthinkable. “Elon Musk put his Tesla into space; he launched a vehicle into space!” O’Donnell exclaimed. “If he can do that, then I can figure out how to launch a coffee shop. So I did it.” O’Donnell said The Grind plans to have community events, too, such as book clubs. “I am trying to bring the college students in there and kind of create an evening life there,” he said. O’Donnell said that he has practically worked “every job under the sun,” and that he decided he had to do something different with this new venture. He encourages others with similar or completely different dreams or ambitions to “just start and stop being afraid.” “We are on a spinning rock right now, in case anyone forgot, hurling through time and space with absolutely nothing to lose in this lifetime,” O’Donnell said. “If we subject ourselves to our own fears of getting started, we’ll have a really bad time. So we might as well do it now.” O’Donnell hopes to open The Grind by June 1, 2020.

Emily Carlisle

Carlisle and friends in Ecuador.