Music in my ears!
Things are buzzing at the Coffee Connection locations! The coffee shop/café/restaurant business is never dull. And there are turnovers—often with a lot of sadness, but I am discovering that our turnover rate may not be any greater—and may be even less—than general restaurant life.
Some of our folks (we now have two men!) consider their recovery to be rather fragile. Their strategy for keeping clean and sober is meetings, sponsor, keeping busy, doing meaningful work, spending time in safe places, and being around healthy and supportive people. That’s what they find at the Coffee Connection. “This is what I need to stay clean and sober.” It’s working.
We are growing! About 25 people make up our program—after starting out with 3 or 4 in the fall of 2001. We have created four jobs. We continue our employment training program as we also begin to create jobs. Our new paradigm supports folks with all kinds of different skills instead levels of training. Together we form a supportive, growing organization and community that empowers sustained recovery.
Requests to open coffee shops/ cafés come from a number of different places, offering us the opportunity to expand our work of social entrepreneurship (see link for social entrepreneurship outline). Community partners join to work with us to make a significant difference in lives, neighborhoods, and the local economy. I am learning how to spell entrepreneurship!
We want to say thank you for believing us and supporting us in so many ways:
- buying our coffee and frequenting our locations
- spreading the word
- liking us and posting on Facebook
- volunteering
- donating time, talents and treasure
We continue to work on our Charlotte location. We’ve faced many challenges, but it’s happening and we’ll let you know as soon as we have an open date!
More news ahead! Stay tuned!
we have it fully insulated and heated, of course. We are doing this work step by step as funds are available - all of it in an environmentally-friendly way.
