Look better, feel better: Juicing

Hello friends,

Who We Are:

My name is Maria, entrepreneur and single mother of 4 beautiful kids. I have always wanted to be my own boss so that I could have the flexibility of spending more time with my kids. This also gives me the chance to cheer them on because I'm their number one fan. I encourage sports in their lives simply because it keeps them busy and healthy. When they aren’t off throwing a football or running a 5k course, they help me here at the restaurant. They are learning precious life skills and I even have my 6-year-old daughter working (and yes, she expects to get paid, and even negotiates her pay before starting a task)! Along our side is my mother Ana, creator of all our gourmet tamales. My mother, being my role model, taught me that through hard work you can accomplish anything! That's something I want to install in my kids, so that one day they become leaders of their community.

Owning a small café had been a dream for a number of years. The vision was a café that would serve delicious, fresh Mexican cuisine, our famous tamales, an espresso machine, and a juice bar extracting fresh juice right before your eyes. In our hometown in Mexico, we experienced fresh, everyday cooking made with healthy, local ingredients and this is something we wanted to bring to Evanston. Ana's on Main Street was born a year ago as a result of our participation in the Evanston Farmers Market. Since our tamales got an overwhelming amount of recognition at the Market, it only seemed logical to have them available year round in a storefront on Main Street. Through a lot of hard work and dedication, we opened Ana's on January 6, 2014.

What we believe at Ana’s:

1.) We give our community a healthier option through juicing and other health-focused alternatives. For example, we have vegan items and all of our tamales are gluten free. We buy fresh produce through our local farmers right here in Evanston, WY to bring you the yummiest, healthiest food around.

2.) Bringing something new to downtown gives our tourists more options and it provides more diversity for our Main Street.

3.) We want to give our community a healthier substitute to eating out. There are many people that do not eat the recommended daily serving of fruits and vegetables. By juicing you can achieve your daily serving in a tastier, easier way. It is more appealing to blend broccoli, kale, and cucumber with the sweet taste of pineapple instead of chowing down on a salad every day.

4.) Making our community aware of all the benefits of juicing is our number one goal. By emphasizing the importance of living healthy, we want you to add juicing to your diet for a healthier you. We want to make you feel better and look better one juice at a time!

To help in our mission to share the benefits of juicing, we need your help funding a Juice Extractor (Specific Model - Nutrifaster N450 ($2750)) that has a larger vegetable and fruit extracting capability. This model of juice extractor is more efficient, is a better quality and can process a larger volume than the extractor we are currently using. We would also like to purchase a Citrus Juicer (Specific Model - Uniworld usc-n50 ($250)) making it faster to juice citrus. Right now, we have a small extractor that takes too long and does not work nearly as well as a commercial juicer would. We want to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for freshness and the well-being of our customers. Our goal is to raise $3,000 which will enable us to buy both the Extractor and Citrus Juicer. We want to shrink the waiting period our customers undergo and make juicing more efficient.

I'm asking the community for support. We want to help strengthen our local economy by encouraging investment in local businesses and helping create a healthy lifestyle for all! If you don't have the means, we ask that you please help by sharing our project with all your contacts via email, Facebook and Twitter!

I thank you for taking the time to check out my project. Please accept my invitation to celebrate our success at the end of my campaign on October 30. Stop by Ana's and enjoy our tasty juices and our delicious tamales. Also watch for our many other specials and drawings throughout the campaign! Thank you, again, from the bottom of my heart.