For more than 7 years, The Guild School has operated a coffee shop where roughly 300 students have been able to gain valuable work experience. Students work in 30-minute increments and are responsible for setting up the equipment, taking and preparing orders, operating the cash register, delivering to offices around the building, and cleaning up when the day is done. About 30 coffees are distributed during the two hours the Coffee Shop is open each weekday.
The Coffee Shop is part of The Guild School’s larger vocational services program, which is individualized for each student’s interest and skills. Department staff will assign students to jobs, create schedules, and serve as job coaches.
Every student over 14 has an individualized vocational training plan and gets paid for completing work shifts. For many students this includes working at the Coffee Shop in some capacity. Students working on their math or social skills may work at the register while students working on their mobility and dexterity skills may help with delivering orders around the building. According to a survey commissioned by Special Olympics, 21% of working age adults with intellectual disabilities are unemployed and 28% have never had a job. For individuals with disabilities, work opportunities provide a sense of meaning and purpose, offer social interactions, contribute to a feeling of self-sufficiency, build self-esteem, and contribute to an overall sense of independence and well-being.
The Coffee Shop helps foster the development of customer service skills in a familiar and supportive environment. Such hands-on experiences will help these students increase their work duration, manage executive functioning tasks, and learn money sense through direct purchasing routines, among other tasks.
In addition to serving hot and iced coffee and hot chocolate, the Coffee Shop offers bagels with complimentary cream cheese or butter. Since opening in 2018, the team has worked to expand the offerings with new syrup flavors, an espresso machine, setting up a new payment system, and taking online orders while keeping costs down.
The Guild Coffee Shop was recently highlighted by Meghan Smith of GBH News on Instagram. She spent the morning seeing how it operates and shared a video about the program and its impact. Students and staff spoke with her about what they enjoy about working at the Coffee Shop.
“I like making customers happy. I like doing my job thoroughly,” student Josh says in the video. “I’ll be working at Dunkin’ because I have a good resume for it so that should help a lot. I’m looking forward to the success I’ll do after The Guild.”