Sometimes challenges give you a nudge and the confidence to move on to other things. Other times, they can point you in new directions. This is how Paula Haines, executive director of Freedom a la Cart, described some of changes at the nonprofit, which assists the survivors of human trafficking.
At the end of last year, a grant that provided employment for about 70 percent of the organization’s survivors ended. They had been serving breakfast, lunch and dinner at a homeless shelter.
The women who’ve been doing those jobs transitioned into employment in the community. Freedom helped them get jobs, or they got them on their own.
“Sometimes life happens for a reason, and it was kind of that kick in the pants. ‘OK, you guys are ready,’” Haines says. “All of them had been with us for at least a year. They were ready. We had trained them well. They were ready to move on their way.”
The grant’s end also emphasized Freedom’s long-term plans to open a café, in addition to its catering business. In fact, she says, it helped accelerate those a bit because it demonstrated the need for more sustainability.
In June 2017, Freedom dipped its toe into the café model in one of the Columbus Metropolitan Library branches. Haines learned a valuable lesson from that.
“What we learned from that is that our model works better when we’re all together under one roof. Sending our survivors into a position where they’re working solely by themselves, that was a lot of responsibility that they weren’t ready for yet,” she says.
That’s why rather than opening satellite cafés, Freedom is focusing on launching one location that does both catering and public service. The café would be open for breakfast and lunch, and then close to focus on the catering.
Haines says they’ve put the wheels in motion. The organization is raising money and is in lease negotiations, with the goal of opening in the spring of 2019. Find out what else Freedom is up to in this month’s Building Stronger Communities feature.
