10-05-2025
Businesses seek to tap community in fundraising effort
The line of customers was steady at Twin Bears Bakery in Frederick on Thursday. It took Andrew Roy a few minutes to get a chance to chat.
After a few months for the business at its new location, 'we're suffering through the curse of success right now,' Roy said with a laugh. He owns the South Carroll Street bakery with his wife, Emily.
The bakery is looking to upgrade its facilities to meet customer demands.
The upgrades include a new walk-in refrigerator and a new stone mill that will allow them to grind their own whole wheat, rye, and spelt flours on a larger scale, Roy said.
Twin Bears is one of three downtown businesses taking part in a unique crowdfunding effort to raise money for various improvements and projects. The others are the downtown taphouse and restaurant Frederick Social and Tenth Ward Distilling Company.
The program is run through the fundraising platform NuMarket and promoted through the Downtown Frederick Partnership. It lets customers and community members contribute to a business's campaign in exchange for receiving 120% of their contribution in store credit from the business.
The Downtown Frederick Partnership learned about the program through its participation in the Main Street America program, Executive Director Kara Norman said Friday.
After learning more about the NuMarket program and feeling like it had potential, the Partnership told its members about it.
It creates an opportunity to introduce businesses to new customers, which is always good, Norman said.
It also encourages donors to come back to the businesses multiple times to use their store credit, she said. While there, they might stop into another shop downtown and buy something else.
Tenth Ward and Twin Bears' campaigns began April 30 and will last 30 days. Frederick Social's campaign began May 7.
Frederick Social is looking to upgrade its oven and enlarge its outside patio space, said Mike Nagi, who owns the business with his wife, Audi.
Nagi said they're always looking for ways to upgrade the business and thought the NuMarket program made sense.
It's not just asking people for a donation. — they get something back in return, he said.
Tenth Ward owner Monica Pearce said she would use the money raised to help provide a 'face lift' for the business's early-1900s building, including to the hardwood floors and the distillery's event space.
After learning about the program from the Partnership, she talked to some other businesses who worked with NuMarket, and heard good things, she said.
Like Nagi, Pearce liked the mutually beneficial aspect of the fundraising effort.
'It's a win-win. Everybody gets something out of it,' she said.
Roy said Twin Bears Bakery, Tenth Ward, and Frederick Social all represent the best of what makes downtown Frederick special.
'These are truly homegrown businesses,' he said.
After about a week of fundraising, the bakery was closing in on $30,000, just about enough to afford the walk-in refrigerator, he said Thursday.
The stone mill would cost about another $25,000, he said.
Roy said he and his wife wouldn't have felt right just asking patrons for donations to help support their improvements.
But he looks at the program as a type of community financing.
'It feels good to know that our community recognizes how much we care about them,' he said.
