A man who's dedicated his life to help inspire communities to work together towards common goals that enhance quality of life in neighbourhoods was in Lacombe last night, to help celebrate a new local business that strives to bring neighbours together.
 
Good Neighbour CoffeeHouse will open its doors in a matter of weeks in downtown Lacombe; they hosted a soft opening, welcoming Jim Diers from Seattle who now spends time in 17 countries around the world, working to ignite the spirit of community, which he says you should never underestimate.

“In many ways I find that the strongest communities are from the places with the fewest agencies and professionals trying to help the community, and so some of it is just about how do you get out of the way and how do you take down some of those barriers and then how do you remind communities about their capacity, because over time people have started to think about their communities and their selves as just people with needs and they’re always looking outside the community for all the answers and they forget about their own capacity. So just kind of reminding people about the power of community and the power of people coming together”.
 
It was no coincidence that Neighbourhood Life champion and Good Neighbour Coffee entrepreneur Rick Abma also used the event to help kick off Block Party month in Lacombe, where he unveiled yet another way he'll be serving up coffee to help connect neighbours.

“It’s an espresso tricycle that is meant for neighbourhoods and we think that it just is because of the way people can pull neighbours together that they would then have a treat something like this or like the travelling Neighbourhood Life bbq that we have which is all kind of rooted in the coffee, including the stories of the neighbourhoods around here in central Alberta that are on the back of the packages and that is served here at this new establishment called Good Neighbour CoffeeHouse”.
 
Abma and his family lived in Honduras several years ago where they made the coffee connection, he started roasting beans at home and distributing it, he'll now be serving up the organic, fair trade, freshly roasted coffee at his latest venture on 49B Avenue.

https://www.lacombeonline.com/local/good-neighbour-coffeehouse-opening-this-spring-in-downtown-lacombe