Letter from Jason – March 2021

Dear Honey Run Friends,

One year ago, to the day of this newsletter, I was on a plane traveling to Uganda with a group of friends from Western Pennsylvania. We were traveling to Uganda to reunite with friends that we have been working with there, helping them with their local ministries and social programs. We had a wonderful trip as we were traveling around the country visiting churches in small villages and forging partnerships to help them find self-sustaining projects to finance their ministries. Exactly one week from our arrival I was abruptly awakened early in the morning by my travel mates pounding on my hotel door telling me we must go. The US was closing the border, and we needed to get home. We were in a city on the Kenyan border and had to travel across the country to get back to the airport. My how things have changed in just one year.

I arrived home to a mandatory 14-day quarantine. One week after I returned, we were forced to close our restaurant, Tarragon, which also led us to close The Inn for what we thought would be 2 weeks (which in reality turned out to be almost 2 months). The fear of what was to come was mounting. What is COVID-19? How will we take care of our staff? What will happen tomorrow?

I owe all of you a heartfelt thank you. As everyone was canceling their reservations, most of you kept your deposits with us, helping us to be able to keep all of our staff employed during the shutdown. Then, to make things even better, many of you were buying gift cards to assist with cashflow, helping us weather the storm. I am proud and humbled to see that we not only weathered the storm and survived, but we have been blessed to thrive through these uncertain times. Each one of you who has trusted us in these uncertain times to keep you safe following all federal, state, and industry protocols to safely clean and maintain a COVID-19-free environment has been a blessing to me and the forty souls who depend on the business of The Inn at Honey Run to feed and shelter our families. Your loyalty and willingness to come and use our services has kept 100% of our staff employed and operating at their full and normal hours.

I know we are one of the lucky ones. We watch the news and hear of the devastation among our peers in the hospitality industry, and we pray for their well-being. We are continuing to stay diligent in these times as things seem to be improving, but we are not relaxing our standards of the enhanced COVID-19 protocols. We are excited as all of you are with the vaccines and the ability to resume our new normal life, but we are being careful as we traverse this new day.

Thank you again for your support through this pandemic and beyond. We look forward to ushering in spring with all of you and enjoying the excitement of new life as the forest awakens from its winter slumber and the local farms come alive with new births. It has been a challenging year that we have all faced, but there is hope for new beginnings. We look forward to celebrating these new joys with you at The Inn at Honey Run.

Your humbled and thankful Innkeeper,

Jason