Starbucks to support Englewood community by
creating local jobs, providing job skills training to youth, and
investing in local women- and minority-owned businesses
Following success with similar stores in
Ferguson, Phoenix and Queens, NY, Starbucks plans to expand
initiative in 2017 to the Baltimore, Birmingham, Long Beach, CA,
Miami, and Seattle metro areas
Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) today opened its first store in
Englewood in the South Side of Chicago at 63rd and Halsted. The
store is part of Starbucks nationwide initiative to support local
economic development in at least 15 diverse, low- to- medium-income
communities by 2018. Three such locations have already opened in
Ferguson, Phoenix and the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, NY.
Similar to those stores, the new location in Englewood will support
efforts to revitalize the community by creating meaningful local
jobs, providing a unique in-store job skills training program for
youth, and investing in local minority-owned contractors and
suppliers. Starbucks also announced plans to expand the national
initiative to five new communities in 2017, including neighborhoods
in the Baltimore, Birmingham, Long Beach, CA, Miami, and Seattle
areas.
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Starbucks new Englewood store, part of a
national initiative the company announced last summer to support
economic development in some of America’s most diverse, low to
medium income communities, created 26 jobs in the local Englewood
community. (Photo: Business Wire)
“While communities like Englewood have been plagued by crime,
poverty, and a severe lack of opportunity, there is in fact a
long-term movement underway to revitalize these neighborhoods and
return the story to one of hope, resilience and progress,” said
Rodney Hines, director for community investments for Starbucks U.S.
Retail Operations. “Our goal with this initiative is to show that
when the private and public sectors come together to drive
meaningful investment, we can create new jobs and economic
opportunities that have the potential to reverberate for
generations to come. Opening in Englewood is not just an
opportunity to grow our business, but to be part of a local
solution for social change.”
For Starbucks, the new store in Englewood and others like it
form a key part of the company’s long-term commitment to connect
opportunity youth – 16-24 year olds who are out of work and school
– to jobs. Nationally, 1 in 7 young people are disconnected from
the economy, a challenge that is exponentially worse in low-income
communities, particularly among people of color. In Englewood,
where an estimated 72% of people ages 20-24 are unemployed1,
Starbucks plans to work with local community groups and civic
leaders to provide a pathway to opportunity for its local partners
(employees) through training and development, career options, and
industry-leading benefits that include the opportunity to get an
online, tuition-free bachelor’s degree from Arizona State
University through the Starbucks College Achievement Plan.
Starbucks will also work with Teamwork Englewood, a non-profit
that brings community services together, to provide a multi-week
job skills training program for local youth – based on Starbucks
own world-class customer service training curriculum for new hires
– in a specially-designed classroom space located within the store.
In addition to this training program, Starbucks will work with the
community to leverage existing programs that help connect young
people with internships, apprenticeships and jobs, and foster the
type of dialogue and engagement needed for continued social
change.
“Many in the Englewood community believe that our neighborhood
is on the rise again,” said Perry Gunn, Executive Director for
Teamwork Englewood. “A journey of renewal has begun as investment
is returning to the neighborhood. Yet, one issue that remains a
major concern for Englewood is employment. Fortunately, something
can be done to change this dismal plight as many of our youth and
young adults are seeking training opportunities to prepare them for
the world of work. Starbucks in-store training program will serve
as an opportunity to set many of our young people up for their
first jobs.”
As part of its commitment to investing in the community and
partnering with women- and minority-owned businesses, Starbucks is
also working with Rachel Bernier-Green, owner of Laine’s Bake Shop,
to supply a Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownie to the store in
Englewood. In addition, the business is supplying baked goods to
the nearby Whole Foods, which also opened today in Englewood
Square. Bernier-Green, who works with her husband to operate
Laine’s Bake Shop, has also started an internship program at her
shop that provides job skills for young people and teaches them the
basics of baking. Starbucks is working with similar businesses in
Phoenix and Ferguson, including Sassy Cakes by Nina and Natalie’s
Cakes and More. Starbucks also worked with Ujamaa Construction
Inc., a minority owned general contracting and construction
management services company in Chicago’s South Side, for the
development of the store’s site at Englewood Square.
In addition, to investing in communities like Englewood and
Ferguson, among others, Starbucks is a key driver of the “100,000
Opportunities Initiative” – the nation’s largest employer-led
coalition dedicated to connecting America’s opportunity youth to
jobs. This summer the coalition announced it had already hired
100,000 young people two years ahead of schedule, and is now
working to hire 1 million opportunity youth over the next three
years. Following the coalition’s launch in Chicago last summer,
Thrive Chicago, the 100,000 Opportunities Initiative’s local
partner organization in Chicago, has hosted two additional job
fairs for young people living in Englewood and other communities in
the south side of Chicago. Among those hired through the 100,000
Opportunities Initiative is Hagar Johnson. Since joining Starbucks
in August 2015, Johnson has been promoted to shift supervisor, and
was recently recruited to join the new team in Englewood as a shift
supervisor. She is one of 26 partners working at the new
location.
Starbucks Expands its Local Economic Development Initiative
to Five New Cities in 2017
Starbucks announced plans to open similar stores in five
additional communities, including Baltimore (Dunbar Broadway),
Birmingham (Hwy 11 & W Street), Long Beach, CA, the Miami
metropolitan area, and White Center in the Greater Seattle Area.
The first of these stores is set to open in early 2017 in
Baltimore, MD, where Starbucks has been working with local
community, civic and business leaders with the collective goal of
addressing the opportunity gap facing the city’s young men and
women.
“We’ve heard young people share how they didn’t even know about
a particular career path,” said Baltimore Mayor Stephanie
Rawlings-Blake. “So many young people, particularly those in
low-income, diverse communities, are limited by what they see in
their home and their neighborhoods. These types of training
opportunities are such a great way to introduce young people to the
workplace and get them ready for that first job. I applaud
Starbucks for bringing this unique store concept to our city, and
helping connect Baltimore’s young people to our local economy.”
To determine which communities are a good fit for the
initiative, Starbucks looks at all the available data on the
socio-economic health of America’s cities to understand which
communities have the biggest opportunity gaps, which have the
biggest need for business investment and leadership, and where
there is local movement underway to build a better future for its
residents. Starbucks plans to accelerate the development of these
stores over the next two years with the goal of opening in at least
15 cities by the end of 2018.
About Starbucks
Since 1971, Starbucks Coffee Company has been committed to
ethically sourcing and roasting
high-quality arabica coffee. Today, with more than 24,000
stores around the globe, Starbucks is the premier roaster and
retailer of specialty coffee in the world. Through our unwavering
commitment to excellence and our guiding principles, we bring the
unique Starbucks Experience to life for every customer through
every cup. To share in the experience, please visit our stores or
online at news.starbucks.com and Starbucks.com.
1
https://greatcities.uic.edu/2016/01/25/young-black-and-out-of-work/
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StarbucksAlisha Damodaran, 206-318-7100press@starbucks.com
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