An evolution of the Bill's Coffeeshop Newsletter

Welcome to Coffeeshops and Community, another step in the evolution of the Bill's Coffeeshop Newsletter. The weekly email newsletter began in 2000 to promote Wild Bill's Coffeeshop and to celebrate the life and spirit of Bill Sackter, the original proprietor and the man for whom it was named. (You can see an archive of back issues at this website: www.uiowa.edu/~socialwk/bills/newsletter.)

Bill's Coffeeshop is a project of the School of Social Work at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA). It began in 1975 as an employment project for Bill Sackter, a man who came to Iowa City after spending nearly 50 years in a state hospital in Faribault, Minnesota.

Bill's life is celebrated in two movies, "Bill" and "Bill On His Own." His life story is also told in "The Unlikely Celebrity," a 1999 book by Tom Walz, a retired UI professor and friend of Bill.

Bill died in 1983, but the coffeeshop continued. It is still a part of campus life in Iowa City and -- in Bill's spirit -- employs individuals with disabilities.

The coffeeshop newsletter started in 2000 and has been published weekly since then. It now has more than 500 subscribers. Not too long after it started, the Newsletter began looking at issues outside the coffeeshop. Included: Abilities awareness, preserving downtowns, community-building, gender equity and more. It evolved into a place to talk about these issues, first in Iowa City and then in a broader context.

Now it's time for another evolution -- a blog. Think of it as a virtual coffeeshop where we can discuss together creating strong, tolerant and peaceful communities. Look for a new posting each week to get the conversation started.

Thanks for stopping by. See you again soon.