Monthly Giving Program

How is Gerry’s Cafe the same and how is Gerry’s Cafe different from any other cafe that opens in town?

Gerry’s primarily operates like any other successful cafe, offering craft food and beverage, however, it will have significant areas of “uniqueness,” that make it different from any other cafe:

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1. All of the food and beverage is prepared and served by employees, twenty-two and older, with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Our mission is to ensure that this vastly underserved population has viable work, receives a fair paycheck, and is a contributing part of our community with jobs that are meaningful and which they can be proud of.
    

2. Gerry’s Café is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit business, it is not be privately owned or part of a large franchise. All Charitable Donations to the registered 501(c)(3) Brewing Opportunities NFP will support the high cost of day to day operational expenses, which includes wages for our employees.
    

3. Because of disability social security benefits, our workers will be capped at 20 hours per week per individual. This means we will employ a much larger workforce than a normal cafe, meaning we will have a much larger team to manage, care for, supervise, and schedule.
    

4. One thing that will not be different is, as with most new businesses there are required investments and Gerry’s will operate at a loss until initial 1-time investments are recouped.
    

Why are we asking for help from the community to support our new business?     

Because of the different learning challenges and modalities and speed of learning, Gerry’s Cafe initial training of employees will be more expensive than other similar cafes that do not hire intellectually challenged individuals and all employees will be provided paid job training prior to opening to the public.

 

In addition, because of the exceptionalities of our workforce, at times it may take two people to perform a task where in another business it may take one person to perform that duty … This is why our initial training and ongoing payroll is much higher than a regular cafe. It is anticipated by our finance strategy team that 52% of our operational costs are wages alone. It’s for this very reason we will continue to ask the community for support through fundraisers, events and our monthly giving program.

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Why is it important to support Gerry’s Cafe?

 

Our goal is to stay open for many, many years to come and believe that our community will support the meaningful work opportunities and the diversity within Gerry’s Café.

 

Again, we are not just a cafe business, we are ensuring that a vastly underserved population is a visible, contributing part of our community with jobs that are meaningful and which they can be proud of.  That community connection, post school is a huge loss to many of our intellectually disabled adults that we can do something about. 

 

For parents of someone with a disability,  it's about community connection and meaningful work and a reason to get out of the house, even more than fair pay.  We want the cafe to succeed so these individuals have LONG TERM connections to the community and will be seen as valuable contributors.

 

Your donations and generosity directly support these wonderful individuals and is an important way to create a positive impact and give back to our local community. 

 

As always we thank you for your kindness and generosity, and we hope that you help support the mission of Gerry’s Café.