Steven Baker recently reopened Nibor’s Coffee in Brodheadsville and said he wants to help the community’s nonprofits.

“At first, when I had to close my drive-thru, I was not sure just what was going to happen, but we are doing OK,” he said.

Since it is going well at the store, Baker decided that every month he would donate one day’s total tips and donations to a different nonprofit.

The idea came to him when he remembered that when he dressed in drag character as Stephanie Sparkles for Halloween, all the customers at the drive-thru went crazy over his costume.

Baker said he figured if he let people know he was going to dress in drag once a month to benefit a nonprofit, and since most of his drive-thru customers followed him there to the store, they would get a laugh out of it and be glad to donate their tip to the cause.

This March, he chose Pocono Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center to receive the tip jar money and donations; On Wednesday, Baker hand-delivered $571 to Kathy Uhler, director of the PWREC.

“I am very proud of my customers and fans of Stephanie Sparkles,” Baker said.

What it means to PWREC

“We are a nonprofit and all-volunteer and depend on donations,” Uhler said.

“Monetary donations are great, but donations of items we use every day are helpful as well,” Uhler said

The things they use every day are quart and gallon zip-close bags, Bounty paper towels, Lysol cleaner, apples, grapes, and melons, as well as gift cards for groceries or gas.

“We use a bag of apples every day,” she said.

Unfortunately because of the pandemic, donations are down and Uhler can only have a limited number of volunteers at a time, and some repair jobs that need to be done have had to wait.

“Hopefully when we can open up again we can have more volunteers. We can always use volunteers with carpenter skills,” she said.