Whether you’re fans of The Mockingbird Café, family members, friends, or a sympathetic stranger, thank you in advance for your interest in our story, donation, and further support. This page is written by and will be maintained by Laura, Donna’s daughter and longtime Mockingbird manager.

Nobody ever wants to be in this position, but we’ve been put in a place where we need to start sourcing help from the community. Starting a small business is never easy, but Donna started The Mockingbird ten years ago with nothing but her own talents and the support of this community. She has been a staple in the Christiansburg area with her business and longtime ties to the town. The Mockingbird survived Covid and seemingly every other possible crisis a small business could face, but now we’ve decided to do what’s best for Donna’s health and will be stepping away. We’re staying positive and hoping another entrepreneur will continue the spirit of the operation, and we hope you will remain positive too and support them the way you’ve supported us. And we do need your support, now more than ever.

Donna has been diagnosed with cancer, and while we are not yet ready to dive into the details, it’s not going to be a cakewalk. What I, Laura, am asking for is donations to pay for the bills – specifically and more importantly, so that Donna doesn’t have to worry about anything else through this process. She needs to focus on getting better and getting better only, which is why we are stepping away from The Mockingbird. So, let’s get down to it. Everyone knows medical bills in this country can get pretty absurd. Prescriptions. Gas prices for ongoing transportation to treatments. Two sources of income were lost in the family by not keeping the shop, as both Donna and I work there full time as our only jobs. Car payment. Phone. Healthy food. Cat food. Power. Water. There’s more. We know we can’t put all of this on the community, but think back to a time when you needed something and Donna came through for you. Think about how you would feel if this was happening in your family.

Any donations made here will be beyond appreciated. However, if you would like to do more, something more long-term, ehem, substantial, or something that isn’t monetary, please reach out to me (Laura) here via message, by text message, or privately message me on my personal Instagram. We’re also quite open to other ways of working out some funding, so if there’s a specific cake, cookie, macaron, you name it, that you find yourself particularly pining for, let me know and we’ll figure something out. Thank you again for your time. Let’s all work together to help Donna get through this.

We will be providing further updates and information, so check back and check in.