Ashley Cox spent the summer of 2024 working in Delaware, and she came home with a new appreciation for her own coffee scene.

"It felt like a coffee desert," she says. "It was basically Dunkin' or Starbucks, and I quickly realized how lucky we are in Washington to have so many unique, locally-owned coffee shops."

Back in Olympia, she started building Messy Mama Co, a business built around community experiences. "My business is built around creating positive community experiences and helping bridge the gap between small businesses and the people they serve," Ashley says. Supporting local coffee became part of that mission.

There was a second reason, too. Ashley created the crawl while navigating a recent diagnosis of liver and kidney failure. "I've never been much of a drinker, and I found myself wondering why community 'crawls' always centered around alcohol," she says. "I wanted to create something inclusive, accessible, and fun that could bring people together while supporting local businesses."

The result was the October Olympia Coffee Crawl. It was free to join, it had no alcohol, and it signed up 437 people on Proxi alone.

What she built

The crawl ran from September 28 to October 31, 2026 as a digital passport on Proxi with 19 coffee shops and stands. Participants checked in at each stop and earned badges along the way: one for the first check-in, one at five stops, one for visiting every stop, and one at 200 points. Every completed passport was entered to win an "ULTIMATE coffee bundle."

It started small. "I reached out to a few coffee stands that I regularly support, created a social media post, and it took on a life of its own," Ashley says.

Three things helped it spread:

Every shop became a promoter. Ashley made flyers in Canva with QR codes linking straight to the passport. Each participating location got promotional materials, including its own check-in code flyer.
A paper version for people who wanted one. She used Proxi's bingo feature to create a physical passport. "While we had 437 digital participants, there were even more people participating on paper," she says.
A photo feed people wanted to post in. "One feature I absolutely loved was the photo feed. Encouraging participants to post and share their experiences helped create even more excitement and community engagement throughout the crawl."

The numbers

437 people signed up for the digital passport
227 checked in at least once (52%)
699 total check-ins across 19 stops
9 people visited every single stop
4,000+ people viewed the experience, and participants left 100+ reviews, per Ashley

The paper bingo players are not in these counts, so the real turnout was higher.

The number that mattered

Sign-ups were exciting, but they were not what Ashley was watching.

"What stood out was that more than 4,000 people viewed the experience," she says. "Every one of those views represented someone discovering local businesses, learning about a coffee stand they may not have known existed, or considering supporting local. If even a fraction of those people visited a small business because of this event, then I consider it a success."

The reviews hit her hardest. "Reading those stories was incredibly rewarding because it showed that people weren't just collecting check-ins, they were making memories."

The surprise

Ashley expected people to enjoy finding new coffee shops. She did not expect how much they would invest in it.

"People started inviting friends, sharing their experiences online, and cheering one another on," she says. "It became much bigger than a coffee crawl and started feeling like a community-wide celebration of local businesses."

The shops felt it too. They liked that the crawl was free for participants and gave people an easy reason to explore close to home. Many people found stands in their own neighborhoods they never knew existed. Several businesses called the crawl a way to showcase the "hidden gems" of Olympia's coffee community.

What she would change

Her one regret is that she doubted it. "I'd spend less time worrying about whether it would work and more time preparing for growth," she says. "Looking back, I would have trusted the community sooner and prepared for an even larger response."

She is already acting on that. The Holiday Coffee Crawl has more than double the number of participating stands. Shops are offering holiday specials, and Ashley is using Proxi's announcements feature to highlight events, promotions and seasonal offers while the crawl runs.

What to copy

Ashley's advice for anyone running a first crawl is short: "Don't overcomplicate it."

"Start with businesses you already have relationships with, make participation as simple as possible, and provide shops with promotional materials they can easily share. Most importantly, give people a reason to invite their friends and share their experiences."

The tactic worth taking is the one that did the most work in Olympia: give every stop its own QR flyer, so each shop is promoting the crawl at its own counter, and let participants share photos as they go. You do not need a big marketing budget when 19 businesses and a few hundred participants are all telling their friends.

As Ashley puts it: "Community engagement fuels growth better than any marketing strategy I've ever used."