“People with disabilities are employed at about half the rate of people without disabilities, so I was looking for a way to impact that unemployment rate,” Aimee Wehmeier, president and CEO of Paraquad, said of Bloom Café, which the organization opened in April.
Bloom Café is a social enterprise restaurant that serves the general public and offers a three-step workforce development program, including a 12-week culinary training program, an internship in the café, and then job placement to assist with finding jobs in the community.
“We believe with the right support and the right resources, people with disabilities can work,” Wehmeiersaid. “We know that one of the biggest barriers for people with disabilities to employment is lack of skills and lack of opportunities. When you go to Bloom Café, you are supporting job opportunities for people with disabilities. We believe that people should be working in the community.”
Paraquad’s mission is to empower people with disabilities to increase their independence through choice and opportunity.
Colby Brown participates in Bloom Café’s new pilot training program. He has a learning disability, but is flourishing through Bloom Café training classes and hopes to one day start his own business.
“Making it through this program, it just helps me a lot and builds up my confidence,” Brown said. “We are a family, we build each other up, and we all work together as a team. Everybody in the kitchen really are nice people, and they are treating us like family.”
The pilot class started on the first week of June with the goal of training people to work in the restaurant and then advance to other employment.
“Right now what we’re doing is learning all different types of things in the kitchen,” Brown said. “We are learning how to do cooking methods, and we also learned how to use a dishwasher, and we also learned how to clean up the whole restaurant and make sure everything is spotless.”
After the 12-week training, Paraquad offers a paid internship either at Bloom Café or elsewhere in the community. Then a Paraquad employment specialist will help place people with disabilities find jobs in the community based on the individual’s interests and skills.
“My favorite part about this program is basically you get to learn everything that you’ve never been taught before, or basic things that you need to learn about of how to work in a restaurant,” Brown said. “If you want to own your own restaurant, there are times that you’re going to have to be professional of how to work in a restaurant.”
Chef Joe Wilson Jr., Bloom Café’s culinary director, teaches most of the classes in its training program.
“They’ve still got a ways to go, but we have made a lot of progress,” Wilson said. “They all passed a serve-safe food handler’s certificate. They’ve had to have a knife in their hands and some other challenges that they’re not used to, but they all seem pretty eager, ready to learn, and interested in the culinary field,” Wilson said.
He believes that all eight of the initial trainees will be able to find an internship to hone their skills more and find work in the field. “I think there is a place for everyone in hospitality,” he said.
Bloom Café has a team of experts that makes the program flourish. Casey Shiller, two-time winner of the Food Network’s Cupcake Wars and director of the baking and pastry program at St. Louis Community College, assists with teaching, and the college was a program partner from the beginning.
“My colleagues and I got to see this from its infancy, and to see it operational and to see those students that are going to receive a fantastic training-based education is amazing,” Shiller said. “I’m so happy that we have this style of community commitment to bettering the lives of these young people.”
The prerequisites of the program are to be 18 years of age or older, have any kind of disability, and be employable.
“We’ll give anybody a chance, but we have to have an end result of being productive out in the field to help the hospitality industry, which is really hurting for reliable people right now,” Wilson said.
“Our Paraquad team helps monitor students on their internship and find the right employment opportunities out there. With my network and some of the great people with Paraquad, I think it’s going to be no problem to place people where they can be most comfortable and the most productive in food service.”
Wehmeier had the idea for the restaurant and training program, but she credits the community with making it happen.
“I will only take credit for the idea because a lot of community support and a lot of really brilliant people made that dream a reality,” she said. “One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that community support is so necessary in making any social enterprise work, and from the very beginning we’ve had a ton of community support.”
The community has been involved in Bloom Cafe’s development from the beginning. Paraquad did a Kickstarter campaign that raised $15,000 for the café, which got its name through a public competition on Facebook.
Bloom Café is located at 5200 Oakland Ave. in St. Louis and open 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
“It gives the public an opportunity to come in and see what a really integrated workforce can look like,” said Kevin Condon, director of marketing and public relations for Paraquad – “people with disabilities working alongside people who don’t have disabilities.”
For more information, visit thebloom.cafe or call 314-65-BLOOM (314-652-5666).
