Greenfield-Central High School junior Destiny Buja prepares a coffee to be delivered to a teacher Wednesday morning. Buja is among students learning life skills through a student-run coffee cart business.
Shelley Swift | Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD — Watch out Starbucks. There’s some new competition in town, and it’s hard to beat the service with a smile.
Each weekday morning around 9 a.m. a group of life skills students at Greenfield-Central High School load up a coffee cart with hot beverages and bagels and make their way down the halls, delivering custom orders right to teachers’ doors. Students make another round of deliveries in
the afternoon, often with sweet treats like brownies or cookies they’ve made themselves.
The Functional Academics class is made of students with mild to severe disabilities. Managing the coffee cart teaches them responsibility and instills in them a sense of confidence, said their teacher, Emily Weaver, who accompanies them on their coffee runs each day.
Sixteen-year-old Michael Annarino was all smiles Wednesday morning as he handed a bagel to radio and TV teacher Bill McKenna, who places an order every day.
“I don’t eat breakfast before work, so getting a bagel is nice, but mostly I just like seeing the kids out and about,” said McKenna, as he prepared to sip his morning java.
Although she’s nonverbal, 18-year-old Abi Caudill took some cash from McKenna as he talked her through how to make change.
Learning how to make change and manage money is a big part of what students learn from running the business, said Weaver, who initiated the coffee cart concept at the start of this school year, building on an idea she learned through a Facebook group for special education teachers.
“They get to learn so much from this experience,” said Weaver, who loves seeing her students’ sense of independence grow.
Running the coffee cart teaches them so much more than just money management, she said.
“They learn independent living skills, vocational skills, communication skills, and even academics,” said the teacher, as a crew of students set about filling orders Wednesday morning.
Each day, teachers throughout the school have the chance to place an order online. A couple of students check the orders each morning while others make the coffee, toast the bagels and stock the cart with trail mix, sodas and other treats. Two or three students are chosen to make the deliveries each day.
The students get a little help from the general education students who take part in the Functional Academics class experience, which teaches students with disabilities the life skills needed to succeed on their own.
Teachers can order hot or iced coffee, hot chocolate, apple cider or soda. In addition to drinks, they can also order snacks such as bagels, fruit bars and doughnuts.
Abi could hardly contain her enthusiasm as her classmates prepared Wednesday’s orders, squealing and shaking her hands with excitement.
A handful of teachers and students greeted her by name as she pushed the wheeled cart through the hallways as her crewmate, Destiny Buja, read through the orders to see which room to stop at next.
While the coffee cart is available only to teachers, Weaver has considered expanding the business to let students place orders as well.
The money made selling drinks and snacks sustains the program, said the teacher, who is thrilled to see how running the coffee cart has been teaching her students life skills.
“The list of things they learn could go on and on,” she said. “They work on reading and writing when filling out the forms, reading labels, making drinks and food, working on measuring out certain amounts of food, locating rooms around the school and communicating with customers.”
Learning those skills is part of the broader spectrum of things Weaver teaches through the life skills classes each day.
Students are given various tasks and jobs in the classroom and earn classroom dollars to complete them. They then learn how to budget their money to simulate running a household and paying bills.
“It teaches them to be independent,” said Weaver, who started teaching at the high school in 2014.
As she helped Michael pop a bagel into the toaster on Wednesday, 19-year-old Destiny said running the coffee cart was one of her favorite parts of class.
“It’s awesome getting to make people coffee,” she said as she gave Michael a fist bump as they prepared to load up the cart with the day’s orders.
Jason Cary, principal at Greenfield-Central High School, counts the coffee cart as a tremendous success.
“It has been a wonderful experience for our students. This real-world experience is perfect for them, and we are very happy with how it has been received,” he said.
