New Nonprofit Launches Barista Training Program For Homeless, At-Risk Youth

This is KPBS Midday Edition I am Maureen Cavanaugh. The craft coffee business is good in San Diego. So get impacts that some cafés are reaching out to help the larger community. The owners of Café virtuoso and barrio Logan have come up with the idea for a training school in the specialty coffee business. The San Diego coffee training Institute would help members of at risk populations learned to become certified baristas. They would like to start with young adults who are just moving out of foster care. Joining the is savanna Phillips founder of the San Diego coffee training Institute. Welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. Robert Coleman is from second chance a job reentry program here in San Diego. Welcome. Savannah your mother owns Café virtuoso. You are a certified blister. He recently finished renovation of the Café why are you taking on this challenge. To me it seems like the obvious next step. We are kind of at the crossroads of the homeless population in downtown San Diego and I see it every single day on my way to and from work and it is really quite devastating. The population is just so sprawling and out-of-control. Café virtuoso actually expanded the last two years ago. We moved next-door into this huge space so it's almost like he deserted the café space that we are in which is like a warehouse space and it just needed to serve a greater purpose. And that's where it will be located. What kinds of programs will it offer? We will offer the program every month. Depends on the organization something like second chance or Monarch school which is around the corner from us it is a 3 to 5 day program depending on what the needs of the partnership is that we are working with and it is barista training first and foremost that it is actually also really heavily involved in customer service skills and learning how to operate a POS and how to take in order from somebody and rotate stock originally it was heavily focused on the Barista aspect of it but Robert was over here soon what about taking people's orders and rotating inventory and these are the skills that people need to get the job and keep the job. They work with other nonprofits like second chance. What will your role be? We wanted to provide an opportunity for our graduates. When they come out of incarceration with the disease of addiction we know that one of the important aspects of employment and we do a lot of the son skills training like had to do an interview and how to prepare a lot of previews to their life in the future. And the great thing about the coffee training Institute is they provide a hard skill to think about how many hotels have a barista bar and how many Starbucks we have in San Diego. That is a huge skill for our client is not only does it give them stable employment it also gives them a sense of future. The idea is that people who go through this program will be prepared to step into a job with the local craft coffee business. It's a certification account of universally seen as -- it is kind of a shoe in the door for a job. The certification and they are the newest and kind of most updated tech. Do say that baristas that have a certification will be able to make a living and get a place to live and they will have a life that way? The Sheriff's Department now has a breeze to trolley run by the inmates in the detention facilities. They are already learning some of those basic skills now they serve them to inmates at this point of the time. Who does not coffee would everything the thing. Really you look at it and a number of different paradigms. Not only is a call -- offering a high quality marketable certification for those who want to go to the advanced level and the everyday knowing how to stop the whole thing. They were really excited that this opportunity. How much more can we offer that sense of hope when we get together with a really practical marketable skill. How soon do you expect to get the program off the ground? I would like to be building the facility by the summertime and launch the program by the fall. And also have that the beginning of October. They -- we need about 50,000 to do the buildout itself that is kind of our first little bit to chew on. I've been speaking with savanna Phillips founder of the San Diego coffee training Institute and Robert Coleman from second chance. Thank you. Be sure to watch KPBS midday at -- evening edition on KPBS TV. Dryness tomorrow for KPBS midday edition at noon if you ever miss a show you can check out the midday edition podcast at KPBS.org/podcast. I am Maureen Cavanaugh thank you for listening.