A blindsided but hopeful do-good biz
Riverside Coffee Shop looks to other outlets for its ABA program funding
It is a 501(c) 3 non-profit educational program that teaches life, social and vocational skills to young adult (college-age) autistic and other mentally handicapped individuals.
“We don’t just teach the coffee shop,” said founder Angela Lee, a board-certified behavior analyst. “The coffee shop is their hands-on experience to where they get to practice, in a safe environment, skills that would generate outside the coffee shop.
“What we’ve learned is even highly functioning individuals were getting fired from jobs, usually for stupid reasons,” Lee added. “We presume these kids know all this stuff, and they don’t. That’s stuff we can fix, so that’s what we’re doing.”
But its teaching focus, the Applied Behavorial Analysis program, is at risk because the state is phasing out its funding for the coffee shop’s students.
Lee explained when the shop first started, it became a (state)-approved vendor, meaning “we’re not state employees, but the state pays us to train these kids.”
She said as a state vendor, her students receive funding to participate in the program.
As of Wednesday, Jan. 8, Lee was informed by the state it will no longer be funding the ABA program.
“We were blindsided,” she said. “(The state) decided we’re not pumping out baristas fast enough, so they’re going to phase out funding.
“Unfortunately, 100 percent of our students were using the (state) program to pay their tuition,” Lee added. “We had five students who were supposed to start Monday, Jan. 13, and three of them were denied (funding). … Five days before they were supposed to start classes, we informed the families that they would not be funding (the students).
However, state officials “did inform me of another program that we can apply for,” Lee said. “I have no idea how that will work out.
“Why they didn’t just roll us over to the other program, I don’t know, but they’re making me start over from scratch,” she added.
In the meantime,” my board of directors and I, our goal is to get away from state funding altogether,” Lee said. “We would like to be privately funded so that we don’t keep repeating the same issue.
“We also don’t want to be dictated as to what our curriculum has to include or not include,” she added. “What we’re hoping for is to get some corporate sponsorship.”
The program’s annual classroom budget is $140,000.
“Our goal is to get $140,000 from 14 $1,000 corporate sponsors … and seek grant funds or other funding,” Lee said.
The good news is, “They didn’t just cut us off – they didn’t just stop – so we have a little bit of time with the current funding,” she said. Last week, “Good Neighbor Shop brought us a check for $10,000.”
Should they not get the funding, “We would not be able to run the classes,” Lee said. “We’d have to close the classes.
“But we don’t foresee that happening,” she added. “We’re very hopeful that, through fundraising efforts, grant writing, etc., that we’ll get funded.”
The Applied Behavioral Analysis program is a two-year course.
“I designed the program for moderate to severe population” needs, Lee said.
In the program, “we have foundational skills and we have advanced skills,” she said. “We conduct an assessment on the individual and then we decide, ‘do they need to start with the foundational (classes using the PEERS curriculum) or do they already have those and are they going into the advanced skills classes?’”
Once a student graduates, he or she can go out into the workforce with either a coach or alone to a job, depending on the advancement of that student. However, some may stay at the coffee shop.
“My job is to see how far we can push these kids before we send them out,” Lee said.
Riverside Coffee Shop opened in 2021 for to-go orders.
“As you recall, that was the second round of COVID-19,” Lee said. “By March ’22, we were fully open, and we actually had our first class started with three students.”
