The best coffee mugs are rarely found sets. (Unless of course we’re talking about wayward mugs that have escaped from their matching siblings.) Nope. The crème de la crème of coffee mugs, at least in my opinion, are the one-of-a-kind gems that I can choose, like an outfit, to match my mood.

My “mugshots”

Some mornings definitely require Leadership Development, Presidential or otherwise. On other days I feel like an MGM starlet ready to roar. Occasionally I'm sure the Centers for Disease Control will put me under quarantine, but mostly I just need a pair of wings.

This holiday season I have a new favorite mug. It’s not in my cabinet, but at the Urban Ministries of Durham’s Community Café, which serves 600 meals a day to the homeless and the hungry. They don’t have nearly enough mugs and chairs, and the ones they do have are pretty worn.

So on December 4th, McKinney’s Seats of Honor program started matching employee donations of $25.  Each gift made sure a guest at the Urban Ministries had a mug to sip a warm beverage from and a seat to rest on. By the 18th, we raised enough money to give UMD 98 new mugs and chairs (or $4,900 if you do the math).

Even if these mugs are part of matching sets, if they don’t have any clever sayings or pictures of cute kitties, for a small stretch of heaven, they will be the favorite mugs of many whose value will increase each day.