Riverhead cafe launches summer drink to support Butterfly Effect Project

Riverhead’s Main Street foot traffic is now carrying a direct funding line to the Butterfly Effect Project. Mugs on Main has introduced the Flutter-by Butterfly refresher, a lavender, blackberry and lemonade blend sold exclusively at the 33 East Main St. cafe through September, with a portion of each sale going to the nonprofit.

The drink was listed at $5.75 for a medium and $6.25 for a large, making every purchase part refreshment and part fundraiser. Tijuana Fulford said the money will go directly toward filling BEP’s community freezer, which currently feeds 77 families and roughly 376 people at a cost of about $1,500 a month.

Fulford said the timing matters because “the need is so much higher” and the price of everything is more expensive. She also said she holds open office hours at Mugs on Main on Wednesdays from noon to 2 p.m., a setup she described by saying Main streets are the “hearts of the community” and calling the partnership a “win-win.”

The Butterfly Effect Project was founded on March 8, 2014, with just eight girls from Riverhead and Flanders. It now says it serves more than 700 young people across the East End and operates more than 30 chapters in communities and school districts, a footprint that has grown far beyond its earliest local roots.

The nonprofit’s Riverhead chapter now has a permanent base at 1146 Main Rd. in Jamesport after Craig and Ina Hasday purchased the property for $950,000 and endowed it to BEP in 2024. That home gives the organization a fixed place to support its food programs and youth services while also anchoring its work closer to the families it serves.

Mugs on Main opened in early 2023 and quickly became more than a coffee stop. Kasandra Watkins Schaeffer and Jeff Schaeffer built the business at 33 East Main St. into a full-service spot with breakfast, lunch, dinner, cocktails, wine and beer, along with weekend programming that has included a Sunday Summer Market, Bitchy Bingo, open mic nights and a Friday murder mystery game.

The collaboration lands at a time when Riverhead is pushing hard to keep downtown active, including the town’s nearly $33 million Town Square project and a $250,000 New York Main Street grant for redevelopment. In that context, the Flutter-by Butterfly refresher is more than a seasonal menu item: it is a small, visible example of how a Main Street business can turn summer sales into community support and tie local commerce to a local safety net.