During the past month, we checked in with our 2024 grantees to learn how their funded programs, projects, and initiatives are progressing – and to better understand the impact they’re making across Los Angeles. Now, we are excited to share these interviews, with stories of growth, challenges, and community transformation.

Coffee With A Cause received funding through the LA2050 Grants Challenge from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to support its social enterprise providing job training and paid internships for transitional age youth (TAY) in Northeast Los Angeles. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation with their team.

LA2050: Your grant application centered around launching a second coffee shop, in a new location! How are you holding the balance of replicating a successful model and adapting it to the unique needs of Northeast LA?

Coffee With A Cause: Coffee With A Cause provides job readiness and internships for transitional age youth. We very successfully created a coffee shop in Pasadena as a social enterprise, and we are now replicating that in Highland Park. It’ll be unique to that neighborhood, which means the businesses and the youth are all different.

We actually didn’t set out to open a second location, but the reason we did is because we had nonprofits asking us to offer opportunities further west. Our motivation to go where the need was, is what really sets our shop apart. Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, Optimist Youth Homes & Family Services, and some of those bigger nonprofits have a lot of youth that are either in Downtown or Northeast LA, so there is still a need for more workforce development programs.

To have these nonprofits reaching out and saying “we want to be able to send our youth to you, but you're just too far” was the driving factor for why we ended up in Highland Park. We made it a top priority to be within walking distance from the A-line station in Highland Park, so we're really coming in because we were asked. We're learning from the people there and making sure that we're truly there to meet their needs, as opposed to just pushing an agenda – we're there to be there for the neighborhood and the community.

LA2050: Looking ahead, how do you see this second cafe influencing conversations around youth workforce development in Los Angeles County – in particular for transition age youth?

Coffee With A Cause: Since we are replicating what we did with our first cafe in a new city, we are really looking at the nuances of what's important to that city, the community, and the neighbors. We're showing that this can happen throughout LA County, and this could enable us to provide job readiness and internships all across the county. Ideally every TAY who wants to get their first job would have a pathway to get to that step, and have sustainable employment in the future.

We’ve worked with other nonprofits that have career clubs or some form of job readiness but it's mostly just conversations, resume reviews, and interview prep. Getting that live experience with customers seems to be the big thing that's missing from a lot of workforce development offerings. Being able to be an example of what the youth truly need, and provide the hands-on experience future employers are looking for, is one of the things that has really set our program apart. On top of reaching out to small businesses to provide internships, we’re hoping to expand the idea of social enterprises, and how any business can create social impact. We just encourage both nonprofits and workforce development programs, to really consider how they're setting their youth up for success and how they're getting their youth that hands-on experience.

We've also taken our program to the next level by adding certification for certain industries, so participants receive both the hands-on training and certification. When you put that certification on your resume it puts you even higher on the list when you are interviewing for another job. It shows you're a great employee committed to showing up every day to work and you have mastered certain skills.

The three specific certifications we offer are: 1. SCA Barista Certification with the Specialty Coffee Association, 2. CompTia A+, an industry standard IT Certification, and 3. NASM - the National Academy of Sports Medicine Personal Trainer Certification.

LA2050: As a follow up, what do you think is unique about coffee? Why, coffee?

Coffee With A Cause: One of the reasons we chose coffee is because a coffee shop is a community hub where people naturally come together to congregate, chat with friends, do business, and meet with people in the community. We started with that love of coffee, and getting people to come together in support of one another.

Coffee is also such a great starter job, because it's well rounded. You learn the technical aspects of being a barista, you're developing your people skills because you're interacting with customers, and you're learning to work on a team. You also learn how to do the parts of the job that aren't fun, like cleaning. So it really does prepare you well for the future, since you’re going to utilize these skills in pretty much any job.

It is also a flexible job, which is another thing that really works well for our youth. It's a job that works around a college student’s schedule, and also provides the option for full time work as a barista.

LA2050: What do you hope to achieve in the last six months of the grant, and how can the broader LA2050 community support?

Coffee With A Cause: With the grand opening of our second coffee shop being scheduled for later this year, we would encourage local businesses to open their doors and build more internships with us. We also would encourage local politicians, and others, to see what's being done in the neighborhood to help our neighbors stay in their community.

For individuals, we want you at our grand opening, and you gotta come get a great cup of coffee. You can also visit our Pop-up and meet our baristas, and interns. Pop-up hours are Tuesdays and Fridays, 8:00 am to 1:30 pm, and the address is 6956 North Figueroa – right across from Optimist Youth Homes & Family Services.

We are all really looking forward to opening our new coffee shop, and we are also excited to start weekly Wednesday board game nights soon for the community and local youth. Look for our social media announcements.

We’re enjoying meeting our immediate neighbors, and we can't wait for the opening of the second shop.

Interview Participants:

Melissa Spolar, Operations Manager

Brenda Lynch, Communications Manager