A tough year gets tougher for Puyallup’s Farm 12 when popular baker dies at work
Farm 12 has survived a tough year.
After a year of COVID-19 restrictions, a tragic sudden death of an employee had the restaurant reeling.
Executive director and founder Krista Linden was at brunch in Tacoma when one of her seven daughters texted her about an emergency at the nonprofit restaurant on 8th Avenue Southeast in Puyallup.
Linden pulled up security video footage from the restaurant on her phone. She was at a loss for words.
One of the restaurants’ bakers collapsed while on his break. Rogan Campbell, 27, had a heart attack. He was unconscious when colleagues tried to resuscitate him and called 911.
Linden said first responders told staff everything they did was all that could have been done.
Campbell died in the hospital a few hours later on March 27.
“Everybody in the bakery loved him. He was so helpful,” Linden said.
Campbell’s favorite job was baking the bread in Farm 12’s notable bakery and pastry shop. He started working there in January. Linden said his health insurance was set to kick-in four days after his death.
Farm 12 is a farm-to-table restaurant off Shaw Road that employs low-income single mothers returning to the workforce. Step By Step, Farm 12’s parent nonprofit, help women and men get back on a path toward financial independence.
Linden and staff decided to remember Campbell through practical help.
Step By Step’s restaurant turned to the community for help. Within about 24 hours, 96 donors gave $15,000, Linden said. Step By Step/Farm 12 gave $5,000. When the $20,000 goal was reached, the donation page was shut down.
The funds will help support Campbell’s wife with three months of income. A Farm 12 employee’s father offered to help the nonprofit purchase a 2016 Hyundai Elantra for Campbell’s wife, Linden said.
The funds also will purchase a defibrillator and train the nonprofit’s staff. Any additional funds will cover counseling costs for staff impacted by the loss.
Campbell’s death has been difficult for employees. His fellow bakers have asked for a blind to be put in the window where they saw Campbell collapse.
“They don’t have to be reminded of it all the time. It just was an incredibly traumatic event,” Linden said. “We just encourage them all to keep talking to each other and remembering him in conversation and support each other.”
A Step By Step partner, Columbia Bank, volunteered to build a garden. Fruits, vegetables and flowers will be planted along with a commemorative area for Campbell: compost bins.
“He enjoyed beautiful and practical things,” volunteer coordinator Annmarie Mathews said. “The garden is going to be a spot where you can sit and just do a little thinking, processing, and for it to be productive. We’ll serve the food in the restaurant.”
There have been other changes brewing at Step By Step’s Germaine Korum Center.
A second greenhouse is being built to store more of the former’s Edgewood Flower Farm moss basket business. Linden said more than 700 baskets were pre-sold within three weeks and there is a waiting list.
A barbecue pit is in the middle of construction. Smokers, a kitchen and seating will be added to an outside wooden-covered patio near Van Lierop Park. Those using the Foothills Trail can pop by for lunch and a drink, Linden said.
“They don’t want to come and wait two hours, so we’re kind of creating something that they can grab and go,” she said.
Eventually, Linden hopes to bring more parking and turn a storage barn into a brewery, bakery extension and catering space.
With each of the sub-businesses, Linden wants to employ single moms reentering the workforce in Step By Step’s work program, which is expected to launch in September.
COVID-19 impacts
The center’s inaugural year was not how Linden expected. She had anticipated the events hall to carry the restaurant and turn enough of a profit for the center to grow.
The coronavirus pandemic upended everything.
Linden considers Farm 12 lucky to have survived the economic fallout of the pandemic with massive community support.
“The community has been amazing, amazingly supportive,” the founder said.
To get lunch at Farm 12 mid-week, there is a waiting time. Reservations for Mother’s Day brunch quickly filled up.
“Before we could cut it off, we had 755 requests for those 300 seats, and within six hours,” Linden said.
The restaurant has been turning a small profit, which Linden called miraculous during the pandemic.
“In January and February, we had pretty significant losses,” she said. “In February and March, we had significant losses. So we just need to get events back up and going in order to help ease that financial burden on the restaurant.”
Linden worries about rolling back into Phase 2 of the state Roadmap to Recovery plan. The restaurant has been able to fill up to 190 seats at 50 percent capacity. Returning to 25 percent capacity in Phase 2 will mean less revenue.
“We’re going backwards,” she said. “It’s gonna be it’s just disheartening to think you’re getting up and almost out of this and then to step back was extremely discouraging.”
This story was originally published April 18, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
