B3咖啡 flips the system for those with disabilities
The Carolina-affiliated nonprofit creates social connections and work opportunities with kiosks and programming.
B3咖啡 不仅仅是一家咖啡店吗. 除了拿铁咖啡和浓缩咖啡, it offers members of the disability community social support, life skills and workforce readiness along with visibility and dignity.
当一个不会说话的实习生想要接受命令时, 例如, B3咖啡 flipped the system to allow customers to fill out a card with their drink preferences.
“我们尝试了一些变通办法,Jacklyn Boheler说, B3咖啡的联合创始人兼执行董事. 用卡片, “we could eliminate the need for spoken communication and still facilitate meaningful exchanges.”
Boheler, 谁获得了职业治疗硕士学位, co-founded B3咖啡 in 2020 with fellow Carolina graduate students Greg Boheler (now her spouse) and Hannah Steen. The name of the coffee shop stands for “Being, Belonging and Becoming.”
作为一名本科生, Boheler worked at the on-campus Starbucks and saw how coffee brought people together. 搭配B3咖啡, she wanted to build a similar sense of community among people with and without disabilities.
B3 now operates a kiosk at the Chapel Hill Public Library and a pop-up coffee service at the 创新卡罗莱纳枢纽, a co-working space and innovation community in downtown Chapel Hill. It provides pop-up coffee service and catering for special events at co-working spaces, 学校, 教堂, conferences or other organizations across the Triangle region.
B3 offers programs and classes on workplace readiness, life skills and technology as well as internships and employment opportunities. 在COVID-19大流行期间, the nonprofit also began to build an online network to keep participants connected. Now up to 300 members participate weekly in person at social meet-ups and virtually in community-building Zoom calls.
B3’s programming helps young adults with disabilities navigate the often dramatic drop in services they experience after graduating from high school, Boheler说. 的实习, which provides work and life skills and the opportunity for service and occupational shadowing hours, 包括每周在一个售货亭轮班, participating in allyship and self-advocacy trainings, 参加B3的职场归属感课程.
“一切都是互动的. We role-play situations that happen at the kiosk and problem solve them together so that there is an educational component,博赫勒说.
While the kiosk gives employees important work experience, 它在社区中也扮演着更大的角色, Boheler说, by helping to eliminate misconceptions around disabilities and the discomfort that employers have with the idea of differences.
“Employers tend to be pretty resistant to the idea of hiring someone with a disability, 尤其是当他们不认识残疾人的时候,”她说。. “B3 increases the visibility of the disability community, 哪个对消除耻辱感很重要. We provide spaces for disabled people to be represented in a dignified way.”
人 without disabilities are often the ones who benefit most from B3’s programs, including college students completing field work in social work, 职业治疗, 人类发展和其他项目. “They are looking for an immersive experience in disability culture and for personal relationships with people with disabilities,博赫勒说.
B3采用非分层方法, having a person with a disability and an ally working together in equal but distinct roles. “We focus on how to support people to be their authentic selves and thrive in community,博赫勒说, instead of focusing on how to fix or change people with disabilities.
“Many of our allies experience a major paradigm shift when they participate in B3,博赫勒说. “It’s mind-boggling when they realize they don’t have to see this person in terms of deficits and that they can learn something from them.”
