Curt’s Café is an Evanston nonprofit that provides training and support for underserved youth. Through their selection of fresh coffee, soups, sandwiches, and homemade pastries, the café invites community members to “dine with a purpose” and help create a venue for hope and change in the lives of its students.
Underserved individuals are rarely provided with the resources they need to truly turn their lives around after facing hardships or incarceration. Without an adequate opportunity to change, many quickly fall back into the same destructive patterns. The mission of Curt’s Café is to overcome this sense of hopelessness by helping at-risk individuals build the skills and confidence they need to improve their situations and pursue full-time work.
“For our sake and theirs, it makes sense to direct these young adults toward a secure and productive future.
These young adults all identify one essential thing that would help them turn their lives around: a job.”
Yesterday we were lucky enough to talk to the director and founder of Curt’s Café, Susan Trieschmann, about her journey developing Curt’s Café and their programming for underserved young adults. Listen to her thoughts on the topics below:
Origins of Curt’s
“What I kept hearing, though, in between the lines, was ‘we want a purpose, we want somewhere to go, we want to feel valued, we want to be respected.’”
Part of what makes Curt’s so successful is the deliberate incorporation of the perspectives of the individuals the program hopes to serve into the business model. By first listening to the needs of these young adults, Trieschmann ensured that the program would provide lasting value in their lives.
Notes:
The young people Susan worked with all wanted a way to make ‘fast money’. Unfortunately that often meant turning to drugs or theft. So when Susan first pitched the program as an opportunity to work at a café and learn life skills that just wasn’t enough for them. “They wanted jobs, not training.”
Curt’s Café offers stipends for the most underserved youth to provide them the respect they deserve. In our society drug dealers aren’t respected but baristas are.
“They designed a program that would work.”
Community Integration: Overcoming Initial Controversy
Suggestion of the program was initially met with some controversy over whether or not it would be beneficial to all members of the community. However, Curt’s Café soon gained support from both local citizens and police. With the successful training of hundreds of students since its creation, the café has been able to build a space for vastly different members of the community to overcome any prior judgments and create connections with one another.
“I knew that we were never going to meet one another, at least on common ground…and this is common ground, it is. And we’ve been able to then engage the community in the success of the students, but also let the community know what beautiful young people we’ve been throwing away for years.”
Their Unique Programming for Formerly Incarcerated Youth
Curt’s Café’s three-month program provides underserved members of the community with indispensable life skills and opportunities for job growth in parallel. Throughout the duration of the training, students learn about the importance of ownership, leadership, and legacy in their lives. At the same time, they also acquire employable skills as they move up through back-of-house, kitchen, and ultimately customer-facing positions. The combination of skills and experience that are gained through the term allow students to move forward from their pasts, filled with the necessary hope and confidence to transition into full-time employment positions.
Susan’s Thoughts on Business
Trieschmann credits her prior entrepreneurial experience for much of Curt’s Café’s success. Small business owners face unique tasks and often have to cover many different positions and responsibilities. Having at least some knowledge in the various areas of running a business is extremely helpful, especially when financial and/or labor resources are low.
“Being an entrepreneur you know you have to know everything. You know you don’t have to be good at everything, but you know you have to know everything.”
The Road Ahead for Curt’s
Although café sales do fund much of the program’s collective cost, Curt’s Café still relies largely on donations to operate. The opening of new locations, changing of tax laws, lack of sufficient funding and staffing, and difficulties associated with training new at-risk students every three months all present challenges to the café in the upcoming year. Susan expects with the president’s new tax laws people will be far less inclined to donate to the café, however, as always, she remains optimistic. She also has a fascinating theory that people and businesses going through periods of significant change roughly every 7 years. Next year will be Curt’s 7th year and Susan is excited to see what change is in store the café.
Despite the challenges of running an entrepreneurial business, Trieschmann’s has continued to grow Curt’s Café and create room for compassion, growth, and lasting impact in the Evanston community.
For more info on the café visit their website: https://curtscafe.org/
…or their social media
