The House Cafe

Goal: $20,000.00

Specific Need

The House Cafe started in 2010 with a simple game night children (K-12) in our community. What began as a game night opened our eyes to the poverty mentality, behaviors and habits that contribute to poverty, and the challenges low-income students face culturally. Currently students volunteer at the coffee shop to learn healthy work habits, we operate a youth recreation center and host events for our students regularly (all free of charge), and in 2022 opened an income based childcare center. At this time the biggest need is funding for our income based childcare center. We knew when we opened it that providing affordable childcare would not be a sustainable business model. Our goal has always been that profits from the coffee shop, as well as grants and donations would cover losses at the teen center (since all events are free) and losses in the childcare center. Grow Green Match day will allow us to continue all operations without interruption as we continue to grow our business (The House Cafe coffee shop) to cover losses elsewhere in the ministry.

Mission

In 2010 we began working with youth in Ogden, KS.  After several years of this work we saw an exceedingly high rate of youth dropouts, incarcarations, poverty, unemployment, and other life choices leading to poverty. Through our community game night, open to all children (K-12) in Ogden, we learned about the poverty mentality, and the culture of poverty many students grow up around. Many students begin developing habits at a very early age that contribute to poverty (poor grades, poor attendance, at-risk behaviors). Our goal is to confront those habits early, and attempt to help our students break the generational cycle of poverty.

In working with teens we have seen that the "Poverty mentality" starts at a very young age. 2023 was the first year in which we operated our income based childcare center. Now we are working to come alongside students, and families, and try to change habits, behaviors, and mentalities that lead to adulthoods in poverty.

Profile

The House Café started as a youth game night at our local community center.  In 2010, when we originally took over this game night, we worked with a handful of middle school students (less than 10). Currently we still host this community game night, which is open to all kids in our community. It has grown to 50-60 kids coming and playing games, having dinner, and formulating healthy relationships with positive mentors.

By 2014 we witnessed increasing numbers of kids in our community attending this game night. We also witnessed a very large majority of our students repeat the cycle and culture of poverty they grew up around. By 2015 students were dropping out of school, actively using drugs, going to jail, or living at home unemployed after graduation. 

Seeing this cycle led us to pray about how to help our kids break out of the cycle of poverty, which in our town, has proven to be multi-generational.  Out of this prayer we built the coffee shop, a teen center, an income based childcare center, and host many community events.

The coffee shop exists for two reasons. First is to teach the students work habits. To be honest many of our students who have developed the poverty mentality are not reliable employees. The poverty mentality often makes excuses for failure and doesn't respond to accountability, it is satisfied with mediocrity, it is unreliable - showing up late or not at all, and the most distressing attribute is dependency on another person or organization to fix their problems. Our number one goal at the coffee shop is to teach the students how to develop an independent mindset, to solve problems on their own, and to do their best at all tasks. Students volunteer and earn promotions as they show responsiblity and achievements. The last stage is a paid internship where we help them become career ready (Resume building, practice interviews, and more).

The second reason the coffee shop exists is to generate profits so that we are not limited in our services. As the coffee shop generates revenue, through sales and profits, grants, and donations, we are able to offer services to our teenagers free of charge.  Attached to the coffee shop is a youth recreation center with xbox's, pool, air hockey, VR headsets, computers, a kitchen and more. In this space we host murder mystery dinners, video game nights, cooking competitions, and much more. The teens in town have events on Saturdays and meals, snacks, and desserts are provided free of charge.

In 2023 we began an income based childcare center. We offer parenting classes, volunteer opportunities to parents, and through their participation they see rates get even further reductions. Our goal is to help the parents develope healthy strategies and habits that will help children avoid poverty mentality habits as young as possible (2-6 years old). The Early Learning Center is currently a financial burden, as affordable childcare is not a wise business model. But through The House Cafe profits from sales, donations, grants, and events such as Grow Green Match Day, we are able to continue to provide income based childcare and cover the losses associated with it.