The floor was sinking fast below the Langley street level, but the community rallied around the little café and came to its rescue.

It took about three and half months to finish, but now the South Whidbey Commons Coffeehouse Bookstore is percolating with life again.

Formerly called Island Coffeehouse & Books, the volunteer-run bookstore and café on Second Street has been remodeled and expanded with a new “Garden Room” for quiet reading, a new kitchen for food prep, storage and dishwashing, new plumbing and electrical updates, new landscaping and a state of the art sound system and lighting.

To date, $90,000 has been raised, in addition to $40,000 in in-kind donations, to complete the project.

Fundraising hasn’t wrapped up just yet.

“We still have about $10,000 more to raise,” said program director Gena Kraha.

The front seating area has been converted to a larger open space which makes it ideal for the cafe’s traditional Friday Night Live shows and other community events, while the Garden Room holds regularly curated shows featuring local artists.

In the coffeehouse, the idea has always been to create a kind of community living room, Kraha said.

The flagship program of the South Whidbey Commons has, at its heart, two functions. One is to provide a place for teens to gain employment skills, and the second is to give the community a place to gather, no matter what age, race, gender, faith or economic condition.

Any teenager age 14 or older is welcome to apply as a volunteer barista, which involves four training sessions in espresso-making skills, running the cash register, customer service and the ins-and-outs of retail for selling books. Twelve- and 13-year-old students are eligible to become barista assistants, while older volunteers usually work in a mentoring capacity. All the tips made by the baristas are pooled for a scholarship fund and the youth engagement program, and hours worked by the students can count toward high school or college credit.

It’s an environment that breeds a continuum of intergenerational collaboration.

The commons offers a wide range of programs for children, youth, families and seniors, and acts as a true “common ground” for local culture and community connections, and as a catalyst to the local economy.

“The entire process of the landscape renovation and the building remodel has been all about our mission: People gathered as a community and stepped forward to volunteer, learn new skills and grow, as we each took away a great experience,” Kraha said.

Kraha, who has worked at the café for four years, was there when an inspection revealed a foundation in dire need of repair, along with plumbing and electrical hazards looming large throughout the 100-year-old building.

Kraha watched as a campaign was formed to save the place from certain ruin.

“It’s been incredible to be a part of it, and to see the way the community has risen up to help, just like an old-fashioned barn raising,” she said.

“People would ask what they could do, what was needed, and that’s the commons operating at its finest. Now they can feel ownership where they hadn’t before,” she said. “It’s served to bring strength to the community at large.”

In addition to its focus on providing job training for teen volunteers, the Coffeehouse Bookstore will continue its Friday Night Live series of performances, with acts varying from singer-songwriters to poets to comedy groups.

“Summer Fun,” a collaboration between the South Whidbey Commons and Sno-Isle Library, provides children in grades 6 to 12 with summer activities such as marine biology workshops, a book group, arts and crafts, Japanese illustration and a family game day. (Visit the Web site for schedule info.)

Also sponsored by the Commons throughout the school year is “Playscape,” a play-date for caregivers and pre-school age children, Spanish language classes and the “Lego Club” on Sundays for young builders.

Kraha also pointed out that the bookstore not only provides an excellent collection of used books to browse and buy, but that book sales are the main source of income with which to fund these extra programs for students. The books are also available online through Amazon’s “Marketplace.”

Thanks in part to a more inviting and expanded coffeehouse, sales have increased.

“It has really been able to make itself a vital part of Langley,” Kraha said of the centrally located café.

“You can ask the mayor about that. He comes in every day and has a double tall mocha. But if his wife’s around, he doesn’t have the whipped cream,” she said.

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