As their dream of running a small business teeters on the brink of failure, two former social workers are hoping the kindness of strangers will save them.

Mollie Winfield and Robin Smeltzer spent 25 years working for social service agencies, helping the city's marginalized people cope with life.

When bureaucracy finally wore them down, they turned to a new life running a neighbourhood convenience store in a corner of Dundas.

Every penny they could raise went into renovating and stocking the distressed property and the residents of the 13 apartment buildings around J.C. Convenience on Osler Court responded.

For 14 months the business grew nicely — doubling between their opening in May 2014 and March — and after months of 95-hour weeks, they were just getting to the point of taking the occasional Sunday off together. That's when the city tore up the road in front of their store.

Never knowing how, or if, they'd be able to get to the store, customers stopped trying and drifted across Osler Drive to University Plaza to get their necessities at Metro or Shoppers Drug Mart.

In a last-ditch effort to save their dream, Smeltzer and Winfield have turned to a crowdfunding campaign — which ends Monday — to raise the $10,500 they need to stay alive until the road project is finished.

"We tapped everything we could and invested everything we had in this," Smeltzer said. "We had to do some major renovations, we had to fix everything from the floor to the ceiling and everything in between."

After investing $50,000 in renovation work and $70,000 to stock their little market, the partners in life and business opened their doors. They had little by way of a financial cushion. .

Without that padding, bills have gone unpaid and suppliers are now demanding cash for critical inventory such as cigarettes.

"A customer might come in once or twice, but if we don't have what he wants we've lost him," Winfield said.

"If we can't keep stock in the store, it's all going to unravel pretty quickly," Smeltzer added. "Asking for money like this is uncomfortable for me, but I had to realize losing this little business would be even more uncomfortable."

Winfield and Smeltzer have received heart-rending help from their community. During the summer, for example, neighbourhood children ran a lemonade stand and helped pay an overdue phone bill; one donor brought their $2,700 hydro bill up to date for a time and another left $250 in cash.

Between those gifts and what has been raised on the Indiegogo crowdfunding site, they've collected a little over $3,000. But it's not enough to keep the doors open.

"We both came into this with perfect credit, I've never not paid a bill on time," Winfield said. "Now our kitchen table is just littered with letters stamped Action Now and Final Demand."

The list of unpayable bills is lengthy: Lumsden/Sobeys Distribution $3,175; hydro $2,667; rent $1,695; National Leasing Group $928; HST $861; payroll remittance $606; Bell $291 for phone service and $176 for Internet service; and $71 to the WSIB.

Neither woman will fault the city or the construction company working the project — they admit the road repair was desperately needed and the construction company has kept them well-informed, as well as buying a lot of merchandise. Ward Councillor Arlene VanderBeek even came and offered much-appreciated sympathy, but "sympathy doesn't pay the hydro bill," Smeltzer said.

What would help, they say, is some form of compensation from the city, or somewhere, for businesses that shoulder heavy costs for projects that benefit everyone.

Earlier this year the owner of a fast food restaurant in the Barton Street-Centennial Parkway area told a city committee three years of endless work in that area cost them more than $448,000 between 2012 and 2014, and the projects aren't finished yet.

Similar questions about relief have come from business operators along Concession Street and along King Street through the heart of Stoney Creek. Both areas face road rebuilding projects expected to continue through December.

Coun. Sam Merulla, chair of the city's public works committee, is sympathetic to the plight of all those business, but says there's nothing the city can do.

"Compensating them is just not affordable," he said. "We're investing hundreds of millions of dollars in redeveloping areas of the city and all of council is sympathetic to them, but compensating them just wouldn't be feasible.

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"There's no human way around this, we just have to suck it up," he added. "Some people have to bear short term pain for long term gain.

"It's all going to be worth it in the long run, but for now all we can do is apologize for the inconvenience," he added.