MOUNT HEALTHY, Ohio — A Dunkin' Donuts employee received the surprise of a lifetime from one loyal customer: a fully furnished home.

Ebony Johnson met customer Suzanne Burke in a Dunkin' drive-thru three years ago. The two became close, talking every time Burke got her morning coffee.

“I go every morning,” Burke said. “Ebony has worked the drive-thru for three years and has provided amazing customer service.”

Recently, though, Burke noticed her friend was not working her usual shift. She reached out to Johnson, learning the mother of three had fallen on hard times and had been evicted from her Mount Healthy home.

With assistance from different organizations, Burke was able to find Johnson's family home — and furniture.

“I just wanted to see if I could help her just improve her life and the life for her kids," Burke said. "I wanted to make sure that they had stable housing so that she could continue to provide the excellent service she does at Dunkin'."

Johnson saw her furnished home for the first time Friday.

“Thank you all so much. Thank you so much for helping me," Johnson said.

Burke partnered with staging designer Jo Potvin of Design to Market to ensure the house was perfect for Johnson's family.

“[It's the] perfect time of the year to feel like you’re spreading joy,” Potvin said.

They also received assistance from New Life Furniture Bank, an organization that accepts household items and makes them available at no charge to those in need.

“It's as much a gift for us as it is for them to be able to provide this for them,” said Dana Saxton, executive director.

Johnson’s children were just as excited as their mother.

“So nice, so nice,” her youngest son said while looking at his new room.

Johnson said she and her kids could have a Merry Christmas and enjoy the rest of the holidays with a fully furnished home.

“I’m just so thankful we’re back in our home,” Johnson said. “The Lord looked out for me because I kept praying and saying, 'Could I be at home before Christmas?'”

Kendria Lafleur at WCPO first reported this story.

MOUNT HEALTHY, Ohio — A Dunkin' Donuts employee received the surprise of a lifetime from one loyal customer: a fully furnished home.

Three years ago, Ebony Johnson met customer Suzanne Burke in a Dunkin' drive-thru. The two became close, talking every time Burke got her morning coffee.

“I go every morning,” Burke said. “Ebony has worked the drive-thru for three years and really has provided amazing customer service.”

Recently, though, Burke noticed her friend was not working her usual shift. She reached out to Johnson, learning the mother of three had fallen on hard times and had been evicted from her Mount Healthy home.

With assistance from different organizations, Burke was able to find Johnson's family a home — and furniture.

“I just wanted to see if I could help her just improve her life and the life for her kids," Burke said. "I wanted to make sure that they had stable housing, so that she could continue to provide the excellent service she does at Dunkin'."

Johnson saw her furnished home for the first time Friday.

“Thank y'all so much. Thank you so much for helping me," Johnson said.

Burke partnered with staging designer Jo Potvin of Design to Market to ensure the house was perfect for Johnson's family.

“[It's the] perfect time of the year to feel like you’re spreading joy,” Potvin said.

They also received assistance from New Life Furniture Bank, an organization that accepts household items and makes them available at no charge to those in need.

“It's as much a gift for us as it is for them, to be able to provide this for them,” said Dana Saxton, executive director.

Johnson’s children were just as excited as their mother.

“So nice, so nice,” her youngest son said while looking at his new room.

With a fully furnished home, Johnson said she and her kids can have a Merry Christmas and enjoy the rest of the holidays.

“I’m just so thankful we’re back in our home,” Johnson said. “The Lord really looked out for me because I kept praying and saying, 'Could I be at home before Christmas?'”

RELATED: A little girl's surprise became a mission to appreciate health care professionals
RELATED: A sweet surprise for woman who lost unemployment benefits and her juicer

After surging in the spring, the prices of goods like lumber, corn and soybeans have come back down to Earth. Coffee is headed in the opposite direction.

What's happening: Futures for robusta coffee, which is often used to make espresso, recently jumped as high as $2,024 per ton, their highest level in four years. Analysts are pointing to adverse weather in Brazil as well as COVID-19 restrictions in Vietnam.

"Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world," Warren Patterson, ING's head of commodities strategy, told me. "They've been hit with quite a bad drought this year and it's been followed by frost," which has seriously harmed the country's coffee trees.

Arabica futures for December are up 3% this month after climbing 18% in July.

What it means: Companies like Starbucks buy coffee ahead of time and have hedging strategies in place to lock in prices. But J.M. Smucker, which owns the Folgers and Dunkin' coffee brands, said last week that rising costs will still affect its business, especially since it's already contending with more expensive transportation and packaging.

"As we came into the fiscal year, we were anticipating mid single-digit cost inflation as a percent of our total cost of goods sold," J.M. Smucker's Chief Financial Officer Tucker Marshall told analysts. "Now we're seeing high single-digit cost inflation."

Consumers could pay some of the difference. JDE Peet's, whose coffee portfolio includes Peet's Coffee and Stumptown, said earlier this month that it had some hedging "in place" but was thinking hard about its pricing strategy.

Another commodity that's been on the rise recently is oil. Prices are being closely monitored on Monday for effects from Hurricane Ida, which has now weakened to a tropical storm. More than 95% of the Gulf of Mexico's oil production facilities have been shut down, regulators said Sunday.

Brent crude futures were gaining ground even before Ida hit, rising 11.5% last week thanks to optimism that China appeared to have the delta variant under control. It was the best week for the global oil benchmark since spring 2020.

Economists often strip out volatile energy and food prices when they track inflation. But higher costs can still impact inflation expectations among businesses and consumers, which are closely tracked by central banks like the Federal Reserve.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated Friday that the central bank, which has been buying $120 billion worth of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities every month since the height of the pandemic to support the economy, will start pumping the brakes before the end of the year.

Yet data on inflation — and how long it will persist — remains murky, as weather events and ongoing supply chain pressures throw new curveballs. That complicates the decision-making process for policymakers at a delicate moment.