Help Chickadee Bakeshop and other Snoqualmie businesses recover from a devastating fire

It may be a beau­ti­ful sun­ny day around the greater Seat­tle area, but in the his­toric City of Sno­qualmie, it’s a dark day for sev­er­al small busi­ness­es that lost their home to a dev­as­tat­ing fire this morn­ing that destroyed everything.

Built in 1928, the two-sto­ry com­mer­cial build­ing at 8102 Falls Ave SE in Sno­qualmie housed Lit­tlest Wish­es Pho­tog­ra­phy, Sno­qualmie Ice Cream, and Chick­adee Bakeshop/Snoqualmie Pie Com­pa­ny. The last of those afore­men­tioned busi­ness­es is owned by Dorie Ross and Katie Pod­schwit. Katie is a friend of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and the daugh­ter of the late NPI board­mem­ber Nan­cy Podschwit.

Own­er San­dra Collins told The Seat­tle Times that pre­lim­i­nary infor­ma­tion sug­gests that that the fire was caused by an elec­tri­cal fault of some sort. Arson is not suspected. 

While no one was hurt in the fire, each of these women-owned small busi­ness­es faces a long road to recov­ery and they need all of the help that they can get. The Sno­Val­ley Cham­ber of Com­merce has put togeth­er an online fundrais­er to help get them start­ed and we encour­age you to make a con­tri­bu­tion to ensure it’s suc­cess­ful. More than one hun­dred peo­ple have already donat­ed as of press time towards the fundrais­er’s $50,000 goal. Here’s some back­ground from the Cham­ber on why dona­tions are need­ed:

Ear­ly Sun­day morn­ing, a dev­as­tat­ing fire swept through a build­ing in His­toric Down­town Sno­qualmie, leav­ing four beloved women-owned busi­ness­es in ruins. Chick­adee Bakeshop, Sno­qualmie Ice Cream, Sno­qualmie Pie Co., and Lit­tlest Wish­es Pho­tog­ra­phy have lost every­thing in this trag­ic event.

As a com­mu­ni­ty, we are com­ing togeth­er to sup­port these resilient busi­ness own­ers dur­ing this chal­leng­ing time. We have set up this GoFundMe to pro­vide emer­gency assis­tance for these four entre­pre­neurs as they work to rebuild their livelihoods.

Your dona­tion will help these busi­ness own­ers cov­er imme­di­ate needs such as tem­po­rary relo­ca­tion, equip­ment replace­ment, inven­to­ry restock­ing, and oth­er essen­tial expens­es in the gap of insur­ance. Every con­tri­bu­tion, no mat­ter the size, will make a dif­fer­ence in help­ing these women get back on their feet.

Let’s show our sup­port for Chick­adee Bakeshop, Sno­qualmie Ice Cream, Sno­qualmie Pie Co., and Lit­tlest Wish­es Pho­tog­ra­phy. Togeth­er, we can help these busi­ness­es rise from the ash­es and con­tin­ue to thrive in our community.

Thank you for your gen­eros­i­ty and for stand­ing with these resilient women-owned busi­ness­es in His­toric Down­town Sno­qualmie. Your sup­port means the world to them.

Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate read­ers, can you pitch in to help make this fundrais­er suc­cess­ful? It would mean a lot to these entre­pre­neurs to have your sup­port in this incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult moment.

It was our inten­tion to fea­ture treats from Chick­adee Bak­ery at our 2024 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala Dessert Dash next week­end. But instead, we’ll be tak­ing up a spe­cial col­lec­tion for them; we’ll have spe­cial remit envelopes to facil­i­tate dona­tions direct­ly to their recov­ery. If you’re com­ing to the gala, we encour­age you to participate. 

We join Coun­cilmem­ber Sarah Per­ry in thank­ing all of the first respon­ders who showed up and worked quick­ly to put out the fire. Accord­ing to Coun­cilmem­ber Per­ry’s office, units from the Sno­qualmie Police Depart­ment, Sno­qualmie Fire Depart­ment, East­side Fire & Res­cue, Fall City Fire Depart­ment, Belle­vue Fire Depart­ment, Red­mond Fire Depart­ment, and King Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s office all showed up to fight the fire and secure the scene. We appre­ci­ate their thor­ough and pro­fes­sion­al response.