The Inn has passed the five-year mark since our first guest was welcomed into our home. It’s a significant anniversary, one that’s cause for reflection.

Beyond reminiscing about how our business has grown and the steps we’ve taken to refine what we offer visitors to Lewiston-Auburn, the first thing that comes to mind is the Inn’s guest list, particularly the steady stream of parents and their “children” who are students at Bates College. We’ve seen five years of freshmen mature into seniors who graduate ready to tackle the world.

Over those five years, we’ve answered innumerable questions about L-A and what it has to offer. One that we are asked more frequently than I would have imagined five years ago is, “Where is the closest Starbucks?”

Yes, L-A has fine coffee shops, but for people who find Starbucks on every other corner back home, a coffee shop by any other name just doesn’t compute.

David Schmidt is one of those people. David and his parents came to us from St. Louis when we were new to innkeeping. He was a quiet, thoughtful, almost shy, 18 year old. By the time he graduated in 2004, he was an easy-going, unassumingly confident young man ready to take the next step into his future. Over graduation weekend, David and I had a very interesting conversation about his feelings about L-A.

We sat for hours talking about his first impressions versus his current impressions of our community, its relationship with the Bates community, how things had changed, what he visualized for the future and whether or not his peers felt similarly.

Our discussion covered the impressive cosmetic and aesthetic changes in the community, the increased diversity the Somali population brought and the “spice” that diversity provided. I found it incredibly interesting that David, and the student population in general, experienced a greater awareness of the community based on the discussions surrounding the impact of that increase in diversity. He commented that, “There is, after all, very little contact … between the average Batesie and L-A.”

David told me that he honestly didn’t want to leave L-A. He’d like to be a part of the movement improving “its aesthetic presentation while fostering its cultural development.” It would make L-A the ideal place to live and work; a place to “meet interesting people of all ages; a place where people had an earnest desire to be a part of a community.”

But mostly, he wanted to open a Starbucks on College Street within a couple of blocks of the campus. It appears that’s the type of thing he and his friends missed most – coffee served in a friendly gathering spot within a short walk from campus. He visualized buying a three apartment building, establishing the coffee shop on the first floor, an internet caf on the second floor and his living quarters on the third floor. Maybe he’d serve food native to areas the students came from, something like international comfort food.

David’s dream was part of a bittersweet transition from student life to real life, but bottom line was, he wanted to expand and improve local off-campus life for Bates students and this was the first opportunity he had had to express that.

Don’t think that David and his friends are the only ones who feel that way. Early in the 2004-05 academic year, the Bates Student offered a staff editorial that included comments concerning off-campus attractions for students. Entitled “Living in Lewiston,” it pointed out that Bates has been in L-A for 150 years, yet small business here has not yet recognized “the value of being a college town. Where are the local coffee shops and delis within walking distance from campus?”

I’ll be the first to tell you there is great potential for success when offering a service to the Bates community. On the other hand, building a stronger bond between the Bates and L-A communities is what’s really at issue. The editorial closes by supporting that concept: “Opportunities to build understanding and interaction between the campus and the community are the best way to dissolve stereotypes and reduce tensions. This requires that both Lewiston/Auburn residents and the college demonstrate interest in improving our relationship. It is time to recognize the potential for growth; lending our strengths will only serve to build a stronger community.”

David would be pleased to know that his dream is being carried on by the Bates students who have followed him. Personally, I’d love to see Bates students and our local senior high school students and local college students work together on L-A projects (i.e., Museum L/A or the Franco-American Heritage Center). What better way to learn about each other, develop mutual respect and friendship.

It appears the mission presented to both the Bates community and the L-A community is two-fold: 1. Create mutually beneficial opportunities within a short walk of the campus (i.e., coffee shops, delis, music stores, etc.); and, 2. blend our strengths to build a stronger bonded community. It doesn’t seem that either would be terribly challenging to achieve.

Meanwhile, if Starbucks ever changes its policy and allows franchises, I’d be willing to bet David Schmidt would come back to L-A. And you can be sure he’s not the only Bates graduate who loves L-A enough to make a life here.

Jan Barrett is the owner of the Ware Street Inn Bed & Breakfast in Lewiston.