A Starbucks supervisor is getting ready to buy a new set of wheels, thanks to the loving concern of her coworkers — and an entire college campus.
Karen Collinsworth, 65, has been living near the Marshall University campus in Huntington, West Virginia, for decades, and for much of that time, she’s been working at Starbucks, supervising a youthful staff while serving students and faculty.
“I’ve been here since 1976. I fell in love with Huntington. I’m from outside of Columbus, Ohio,” Collinsworth tells TODAY.com over the phone during a short break in her shift. “I’ve been in the food industry since 1978 and that is my passion. I’ve loved waiting tables, I just do. Your customer service develops and you just want to please people.”
For Collinsworth, making people happy has become her signature trait, according to her fellow Starbucks employees.
“I love coming into work knowing that she’s gonna be there. I talk to her about literally everything,” Cassie Gray, a sophomore at Marshall who works at Starbucks with Collinsworth, tells TODAY.com. “She’s like my mom when I’m away from home and can’t talk to my mom. So it’s just like a relief, being able to go in there and talk to her and knowing that she’s going to help me work through whatever.”
Collinsworth’s reputation for kindness might explain why an entire campus full of students and faculty came to her aid when they heard she was having trouble with her 2004 Kia which was running on its last legs.
“She had been having a lot of problems with the car in the past with her battery and it just not starting and her neighbors were having to give her jumpstart and things like that,” Jaiden Horn, another sophomore at Marshall and co-worker of Collinsworth, tells TODAY.com.
“She actually has had car problems probably the entire time I’ve known her,” Gray says. “But Karen doesn’t like to talk about it because she didn’t want people feeling bad for her or anything like that.”
Both co-workers say, though, that in the past six months, Collinsworth’s car trouble has ramped up big time.
“One day she came into work, and she was like, ‘Yeah, somebody stole my catalytic converter last night, my car just isn’t doing well,’” Horn says, adding that in addition to the catalytic converter, Collinsworth car was broken into again days later and had items stolen from its interior. “And at that point, we all said, ‘Well, she cannot be driving this car anymore. It’s barely running.”
Gray says on a Saturday in late August, she and a few other baristas including Jaiden were working. She saw a post on anonymous social media app YikYak wishing that they could donate some money to Collinsworth to help her out.
“We all just kind of talked about it and we floated around the idea of starting a fundraiser for her,” Gray says. “After work when I got back to my dorm, I decided to just make it because I figured even if we couldn’t raise that much money, any amount would help her. It was just kind of like a spur of the moment (thing).”
And so, the GoFundMe “We Love You Karen” was started to “help her buy a working car and ensure she wouldn’t have to worry about monthly bills,” according to the page authored by “Anonymous Baristas.” To date, the fundraiser has raised over $40,000 for Collinsworth.
The original goal was $10,000. Horn says her co-workers all shared the fundraiser on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Yik Yak, and that goal was met in the first 24 hours.
“It circulated pretty quickly that way and donations were very nearly immediate,” Gray says. “It was just amazing to see, honestly.”
Gray, Horn and the others had intended to surprise Collinsworth with the fundraiser once it was done, but it spread so quickly that a neighbor broke the news to her instead.
“I was taken aback when I found out. It was very overwhelming. I knew these kids loved me because I love them,” Collinsworth says. “But for them to be 19-year-old college students … They have so much going on in their life, but then to take care of their Starbucks mom, Karen. That’s just how big their hearts are.”
There are big donations, the highest being a $5,000 donation from Marshall University president Brad Smith, but most of the more than 1,200 donations are much smaller.
“All the $5 donations meant more to me than $1,000 or $3,000,” Collinsworth says. “It was just precious coming from these college kids that can’t afford a cup of coffee. Just goes to show you their kindness.”
Collinsworth says initially she was just looking to fix her old car, but now that she’s received such a sum, she is thinking about treating herself to a Subaru. This weekend she’ll be going car shopping — all while thinking of what Horn, Gray and all the other baristas, faculty and students did for her.
“I know those kids love me and that’s what makes my life worthwhile,” Collinsworth says. “They didn’t have to do something for me like this. It’s just enough knowing that I’m so cared about.”
