05/25/2023
One of the P.O.P. projects I am MOST proud of is the collaboration work I did with Beautiful Rainbow Cafe in Gadsden, Alabama. I met the amazing Chip Rowan during a community informational session about Beautiful Rainbow as they were embarking on opening their very own cafe in the Gadsden Library. I was super impressed and excited - especially considering my college degree and my passion for working with people with cognitive disabilities and exceptionalities. Fast forward a few weeks and I hired the EXCEPTIONAL employees of Beautiful Rainbow Cafe to cater the food for my grand opening ribbon cutting event. (I'm pretty sure I was one of their first catering gigs and they did a fantastic job with it!)
Chip and I discussed creating soft skills training videos together for the students he worked with at school and the cafe. It took some time to secure funding and a plan but around 3 years later he contacted me to see if I was still interested. I had already moved to Louisiana but there was no way I was going to miss this opportunity so I traveled back and forth to Gadsden on several occasions to do filming. Chip and I created the first installments of the Beautiful Rainbow Training Program using the actual B.R. employees as actors and it was .... MAGICAL! They were such hard workers with big personalities and they did great in front of the camera! The training program has grown exponentially and BEAUTIFULLY since then with a multitude of training topics being offered. The training program is FREE to access and available to schools across the country and world. It was an amazing experience and I remain honored that he asked me (P.O.P.) to collaborate with him on such an impactful and life changing project.
"Beautiful Rainbow Cafe creates ability! And great food! Beautiful Rainbow Cafe is an award-winning vocational training program of the Gadsden City Schools. Its mission is to use innovative strategies to enable adolescents and young adults with significant cognitive disabilities to acquire employment and functional academic skills through organic gardening and sophisticated food production. The Cafe is an organic and vegetarian restaurant which provides a gourmet garden-to-table experience! It is the only full-service cafe in the country that is staffed entirely by students with significant cognitive disabilities!"
(SOURCE:www.beautifulrainbowcafe.com)
Click the attached link to view one of the videos where P.O.P. was a collaborator. I'll link a few more in the comments. If you are an employer or educator that would be interested in implementing this program, please go to their website to access the entire program. You'll be so glad you did!
https://beautifulrainbowtraining.com/lesson/phone-etiquette/?tid=yOLo3
Welcome to Beautiful Rainbow Training, a resource for instructors who work with students with significant cognitive disabilities. Beautiful Rainbow Training is the only free online curriculum specifically designed to teach work-related skills to students on the Essentials and Alternate Pathways in A...