♪♪
Jamie: Nikki!
Christina: At the Kids Café in downtown Fresno,
every customer here is delivered their food
with a smile.
Jamie: Erica!
Angel: She has the best smile.
Everyone who comes in just compliments her,
her smile, even when I'm away at the office and they
come up to me and they're all,
"Oh, Jamie. She's such a, she's so lovely."
They bring smiles to other people.
Christina: 21-year-old Jamie Murphy works at Kids Café
every weekday.... delivering orders,
running the cash register and prepping food.
She's one of about 50 special education students
learning job skills at this public restaurant owned and
operated by the Fresno County Office of Education.
Angel: We have autism, students with autism,
students who are intellectually disabled,
uh, we have a student, uh, who has a,
uh, traumatic brain injury, um,
we have a student who is hard of hearing,
so we really have a wide range of,
of students and their disabilities.
For students with a limited, work skills,
we usually do the real simple tasks,
like we have them, wipe down tables,
chairs, basic cleaning, sweeping,
mopping, things like that.
And then for our students with higher abilities,
such as Jamie and Jesse, we have them on,
um, the register.
Jamie: What I like about it is like they teach you like
what to do if you don't know and um.
What else I like about it is,
when the customers come in they say hi to you.
The first time I was shy, and then I got used to it,
what's it called, I wasn't shy after that.
Christina: Fresno County Office of Education
serves about 1,700 special education students,
including 18-to-22-year-olds enrolled in an adult
transition program.
Superintendent of Schools Jim Yovino says he wanted a
place where those young adults could learn
real- life skills.
Jim: Really the main focus is to,
one, socialize them, make sure they're out in the
public, that people, uh, get to meet them,
they get to meet the public.
But also, uh, prepare them for life,
and, and what I mean by that is to live independently,
to seek employment and so what better way to do that
than to open our own café?
Christina: Of course, opening a café takes some
expertise.
So the county turned to Paul Romero,
who previously managed a Cheesecake Factory
restaurant.
Paul: We tried really hard to uh,
to use the same equipment, the same uh the same types
of food, the same ingredients that they would
see in a, in a full-service restaurant in the private
sector.
Um, we felt like it was important for our students
to see where their food really comes from and how uh
how the industry really works,
rather than just giving them sort of a,
a crutch to lean on while working here in the café.
Jim: We wanted our kids to have an opportunity to learn
the restaurant industry.
We wanted to partner with our local restaurants and
say, "Come on in, watch our young men and women.
They're all employable.
Christina: The students must earn a food safety
certification in the classroom before they begin
working in the café.
Besides cooking and cleaning,
they also learn important social skills.
Angel: He really enjoys the register.
That is like the one task here that they all
love to do.
Jesse: Ten
Angel: We let them do what they have to
do, and whenever they need our assistance we step in
Leah: We started in January, and by June,
we had totally different children.
Parents were really surprised how much they had
grown in so many areas.
Much more than we had ever anticipated when we started
the program.
Christina: The downtown Fresno community has
embraced Kids' Café, hiring them for catering jobs and
filling tables at lunchtime.
Antonio: I think it is amazing that they have a
place that they can connect with the community,
a place they can serve the community and gain the job
skills they'll need as adults and be able to
interact with people.
I think it's amazing.
Christina: And, they say the food is top-notch.
Nikkie: Food was amazing.
Antonio: Food was great.
Nikkie: Chowder - poblano chowder soup was so good!
Jim: We thought we were doing it for our kids.
And what we found quickly, it was as important for our
community.
Most people are, they just don't know how to act,
uh, around particularly kids with special needs.
So what it's done is it's, it's really kind of opened
up the eyes of many people to say,
"Hey, these are beautiful children,
they have g-, they have great gifts to give,
and, uh, and we want to be part of that.
Paul: This is more than just enriching the lives of the
students individually.
This is a call out to the restaurant industry
as a whole.
Uh, we need to start embracing uh these students
as part of our workforce.
Our students uh just want the chance to show that they
can do and once our industry as a whole comes to accept
that, I think uh I think everybody will be happy.
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