Students in an adult transition program on the Hart High School campus are learning job skills one cup of coffee at a time.
The new mobile coffee shop, “The Lucky Cup,” brings together students from the William S. Hart Union High School District’s adult program to practice real-world skills like customer service, teamwork, and food preparation while serving drinks on campus.
Sophia Lesseos | KHTS
Hart District’s Transitional Learning Center teacher Sammy Saba said the goal is to give students hands-on experience that will help prepare them for future jobs.
“We gathered these students to go on this venture of making coffee, to teach job skills, to teach customer service, and to just get them excited about going into the real world of being able to train them into learning new, real skills that they could actually use and implement in real life,” Saba said.
Although the program operates on the Hart High School campus, Saba explained the students involved are part of the district’s adult program.
“We’re actually exclusively from the adult program, but we are on a Hart High School campus, which gives us a great opportunity to actually provide awesome services to them,” Saba said.
Sophia Lesseos | KHTS
Students participating in the coffee shop are learning how to take orders, prepare drinks and interact with customers. The menu already includes a variety of café-style beverages, including caramel macchiatos, matcha lattes, London fogs, iced coffee and hot teas.
“We’re doing espresso drinks right now as well,” Saba said. “We’re doing caramel macchiatos, iced and hot, matcha lattes, which we titled Earth Soul, London fogs and iced coffee. And this is just the beginning.”
Saba said the idea for the program was inspired by “Grizzlies Cafecito,” a similar student-run coffee project that launched years ago at Golden Valley High School.
“That really inspired us to actually do the same,” he said.
Beyond learning how to make coffee, the program is designed to help students build confidence and show what they are capable of.
“These students with learning disabilities are amazing. They’re hard workers. They want to learn. They want the job skills,” Saba said. “They just need the opportunities and the right training like everyone else.”
Saba said he hopes the community will recognize the potential of students in the program and consider giving them opportunities in the workforce.
“Those who hire students like this will be so happy and grateful that they had a chance to work with them,” he said. “They’re great.”
He added that programs like the coffee venture can help students push past doubts about what they can achieve.
“Some of these students have felt that maybe they can’t do certain things,” Saba said. “But ventures like this allow them to overcome what they thought they couldn’t do.”
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