Cafe Memories

It is with great sadness but also gratitude that we wind up five remarkable years of the HOME Page Café.

A fruitful partnership with the Free Library, the HOME Page Café is closing on July 15 but our partnership will continue in other ways. 

Since it opened, the café has been an amazing undertaking.  With great leadership from Social Enterprise staff like Nathan Matlin and others before him, and excellent customer service by Yvonne Bailey and others, it has done a great job to serve Library staff and patrons. It currently provides part-time employment to a resident and two alumni. We are grateful for the many residents, staff, and partners who made the HOME Page Café such a great place for these past years. Unfortunately, it has also struggled financially over the years. This year, sales fell off further when the Library began major renovations and relocated 200 staff out of the library. We will continue to foster our partnership with the Library in many ways, including the continuation, and possible expansion, of the essential restroom attendant program.

Please stop in on July 15 for a free cup of coffee before noon to celebrate the café and to say goodbye.

We are searching for new opportunities and poised for growth. Thanks for all your support of our social enterprises!

As we recall this wonderful social enterprise, we reprint a 2010 article from our newsletter marking the second anniversary of the café. 

From Project HOME's Dwelling Place newsletter, May 2010:

Brewing Hope

The H.O.M.E. Page Cafe celebrates two years of business with a social mission.

At first glance, it seems like a typical urban coffee shop, with music playing, art on the walls, a row of internet surfers, and a scattering of java junkies.  At one table, a young aspiring novelist is pecking away at a laptop.  A group of workers from a nearby business are having a meeting.  A few library staffers are casually lunching on break. 

But it’s hardly typical.  The H.O.M.E. Page Café, housed in a beautiful space in the Parkway Central Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, is a business with a social mission, namely, helping to end homelessness.  In a pioneering partnership, the Free Library worked with us to develop the Café, meeting their needs for an on-site coffee shop while helping us advance our mission of employment for formerly homeless persons.

Some amazing things are happening under the high ornate ceilings in this cultural hub of our city.  Persons who once lived on the streets – in some cases not far from this very building – are now confident servers in a quality food establishment.  The t-shirts displayed on the wall, with bright colors and messages of ending violence and homelessness, are designed and marketed by youth in our Harold A. Honickman Young Entrepreneur Program.

On April 16, the H.O.M.E. Page Café celebrated its second anniversary.  In those two years, we served 79,491 customers, who consumed 26,423 cups of fine Starbucks coffee and 8,324 delicious cookies from Metropolitan Bakery.  For two years, this remarkable social enterprise, made possible by partnerships with the Free Library of Philadelphia, Starbucks, Metropolitan Bakery, Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse, Bank of America, and the John and Sheila Connors Youth Employment Program, has modeled what is possible when people come together with a commitment to creating real solutions to homelessness and poverty.

Manager Lisa Kavanagh insists that for the Café to be a success, it must thrive as a for-profit business, in addition to its social mission.  So far, the Café is earning annual sales around $100,000, even in a tough economic atmosphere for small businesses.

“We want people to understand that money spent here is not just for your cup of coffee,” says Lisa.  “And we want to send a signal to encourage other businesses that they too can consider a social mission to their work and still succeed.”

Our efforts at the Café can be described as supported employment.  Most of our residents and youth employed there are working courageously to overcome huge obstacles in their past, which might include mental illness or addiction, a lack of meaningful educational opportunities, and scarce work history.  But with tailored supports, they are thriving.  Job retention is high, and employees are even growing in other areas of their lives.   One of our residents was inspired to pursue a degree in library science, and is receiving tremendous encouragement and support from Free Library staff.

Yvonne Bailey is not your typical barista.  One of eight Café employees (including two former participants in our teen program), Yvonne was behind the counter on day one, and now puts in twenty hours each week.  She admits that “opening up” is a challenge, making sure everything is ready when the doors open at 9:00 a.m.  But after so much experience, “I can almost do it with my eyes closed!”

“I meet all kinds of people during the work day,” Yvonne says, “people from all around the world, with different accents, different religions.”  She laughs, telling how a library employee has taught her to say “Good morning” in Chinese.  The Café job, she says, has wrought tremendous changes in her life.  “It’s helped with my self-esteem, especially by interacting with customers.  I've learned to be a team player with the

other staff.”  It’s also bolstered her confidence to pursue even greater dreams:  a full-time job, maybe in the hospitality or food industry, and purchasing a home of her own.

The Cafe grows out of our long-standing commitment to forging partnerships, so that every person and organization can play a role in ending homelessness.  (The Café evolved from an earlier pilot employment project in which the Free Library hired several of our residents as restroom attendants, similarly meeting both their and our needs.)  It is a shining example of working from common ground and finding a “win-win” scenario:  a successful business, effective services for folks with special needs. 

We want to build on the success of these first two years.  A Café Facebook page hopes to expand the base of committed customers, with regular updates on new menu products as well as library happenings.  We are working on plans to expand the Café model, including a proposal for a mobile cart to nearby buildings.

But as Lisa says, “Even with the best management in the world and the best financial investment, the Café wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for people who are committed to changing their lives.”

And in doing so, maybe changing our society, one cup at a time.