MINNEAPOLIS — Opening a coffee shop during both a global pandemic and a statewide pause of indoor dining is less than ideal, but even a slow opening week at Wildflyer Coffee is a blessing for the baristas.
"Four years prior to this, I was homeless," said Val McKenzie, who recently started working at the new shop in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis. "Now I've got my own apartment. It's great. I love it."
McKenzie isn't working at Wildflyer in spite her personal challenges, she is there because of them. Wildflyer is more than just a coffee shop, it's a non-profit, social enterprise.
"We create employment for youth, 16-24 years old, who are experiencing homelessness," said executive director, Carley Kammerer. "They are learning work skills and we do that for six months and they graduate and we help place them into mainstream employment."
Kammerer is a social worker who started the Wildflyer brand as a coffee cart in 2017, after noticing a troubling trend.
"I was seeing the same youth in my programs, just being homeless, chronically," Kammerer said. "A lot of that just revolved around employment, struggles to maintain a job."
That was the problem for McKenzie.
"I've had several other jobs prior to this," she said. "There was a lot of resources out there to get housing and employment, but when you've got the mental health aspect of youth homelessness, it makes it a lot harder to keep it."
Before joining Wildflyer in August, McKenzie said she hadn't held a job for more than two months.
"I was born with FAS, which is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, so my brain is kind of wired a little different," she said. "A lot of people are going to tell you, 'Oh, you can just fight through it, but you can't really fight through how your brain was programmed at an early age."
What makes this place different?
"Carley understands more. There have been a couple of times where she has given me mental health breaks because I was struggling with something inside my head. Even in my day-to-day life, I feel like I'm being heard here."
Kammerer says that is exactly why she wanted to start Wildflyer.
"I'm very passionate about them not just surviving homelessness but being able to thrive," she said. "During the first three years of the coffee cart, we were able to employ 11 young people, and most of them are now housed and employed, or in post secondary education of some kind."
Kammerer says the new coffee shop will allow Wildflyer to graduate more than 20 young people a year, but opening the doors hasn't been easy.
"Last year we very aggressively fundraised, specifically, to launch the shop," Kammerer said. "We were going to sign a lease in March, and then everything happened with the pandemic. That obviously put us on hold for awhile."
Kammerer eventually lost the space she originally planned to lease for the shop. Good fortune finally struck this fall, when PEACE Coffee decided to get out of the coffee shop business in order to focus on selling its beans and ground coffee in stores. The company worked out a deal to turn it's Longfellow neighborhood shop to Wildflyer.
"It was just like a perfect opportunity," Kammerer said. "They've helped us with training, walked us through just a lot of 'How do you open a coffee shop.' and what do we need to be thinking about. So we want to continue the partnership both ways by selling their product."
Now, each and every sale will help ensure that more people like Val McKenzie have success stories to share.
"I'm going back to school eventually and I eventually want to open up my own business, kind of like how Carley is running hers, where you have the homeless youth," McKenzie said. "I feel more accomplished. I feel like I'm doing really well in my life. It's a sense of peace and happiness that I haven't had for a long time."
Wildflyer coffee is located at Minnehaha Ave and E 33rd St in Minneapolis, and is open daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. You can also order coffee beans and merchandise, or make a donation, online at wildflyercoffee.com.