3c hapter - Index of

Community Capital 107
For all the jokes, the bakery has become a serious success.
Instead of another empty storefront, Cops & Doughnuts now
employs 19 people full time, including the former bakery’s
lone employee. That’s more people than the entire Clare Police
Department employs. The new owners put up billboards on
nearby highways, pulling throngs of tourists into Clare. In the
summer, an average of 2,000 people fl ow through the bakery’s
doors each Saturday. The bakery’s success has spilled over to
other merchants, helping to revitalize downtown Clare. “With
all the people coming through, nearly every restaurant in town
has said this is the best summer they’ve ever had,” says a clearly
pleased Rynearson.
There are no hard numbers to measure the impact that Cops
& Doughnuts has had. But then, they aren’t really needed. “I see
it happening,” says Lori Schuh, a historic preservation and economic
development offi cial with the Clare Downtown Development
Authority whose offi ce overlooks McEwan. “People with Cops &
Doughnuts bags in Coffee Talk buying lattes and then going into
the hardware store.” The formerly vacant storefronts are slowly
refi lling, too: A student- run art gallery opened a few doors down
from the bakery, and an antique store is preparing to open.
Like most typical small businesses, Cops & Doughnuts supports
other local merchants. Baking supplies come from Dawn
Food Products, a large family- run company in Jackson, Michigan.
The coffee is roasted by an employee- owned company in Lansing.
And the T- shirts are made in neighboring Mount Pleasant, even
though a Florida supplier offered a cheaper price. “We buy everything
we can locally,” says White.
The bakery is also active with local charities and sponsors a T-ball
team, called the Little Doughnut Holes, and a girls’ soccer team. It
recently purchased a drum for the high school marching band.
For all that, the policemen’s greatest achievement may be
something harder to pin down, something more symbolic. “The
biggest thing they did for the community was to say, ‘You, too,
can do this. You can save your community,’” says Schuh. “Nobody
else is going to swoop in. The government is not going to come
in and dump buckets of money on the street. Corporate America