When an Islamic center purchased a plot of land opposite a church in Memphis, Tenn., the local Muslim community expected hostility. Pastor Steve Stone had something else in mind.
Upstanders is a collection of short stories celebrating ordinary people doing extraordinary things to create positive change in their communities produced by Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran. These stories of humanity remind us that we all have the power to make a difference.
Tag: Starbucks
Improving America, One Conversation at a Time
Is it possible to solve some of our greatest national challenges while chatting over a cup of coffee? The U.S. Conference of Mayors and Starbucks think so.
When the Solutions City Initiative was announced at the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Conference of Mayors in June 2014, the idea was that these conversations between mayors and their constituents would focus on supporting veterans, providing access to education and empowering America’s youth. But all five participating cities (Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio; Orlando, Fla; Phoenix, and Sacramento, Calif.) have focused on the fact that more than 6 million young people ages 16 to 24 are neither in school nor employed (a group that has been identified as “opportunity youth”). That’s because, when it comes to these cities and some of the issues their chief executives grapple with, “disengaged young people is at the top of their list,” Blair Taylor, chief community officer at Starbucks, tells NationSwell.
According to Taylor, Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, Calif., and president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors played a key role in making this partnership happen. “I believe strongly in the power of public-private partnerships,” Johnson says in an email to NationSwell. “The best opportunities allow us to leverage private sector resources to address community challenges. The Solutions City Initiative does just that, by utilizing Starbucks’ corporate citizenship best practices and Community Store model and combining it with the power to convene held by the Office of the Mayor.”
With just a couple months left before the 83rd annual Conference of Mayors in June 2015, NationSwell checked in on the program’s progress. Here’s how several of the cities are faring.
Baltimore
At a Starbucks in Southside Marketplace, a young man named Rashaud Dubose explained how his participation in the Hire One Youth initiative, which connects unemployed youth from disadvantaged backgrounds with work experience in the private sector, led to full time employment as a customer service sales representative at Wells Fargo.
Gathered around him, among the scent of coffee grounds and the sound of steaming milk, were Alan Fink, owner of ABC Box Company, president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee Donald C. Fry, and the mayor of Baltimore herself.
“We’ve heard young people share how they didn’t even know about a particular career path,” said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who moderated the city’s first hall discussion last October. “So many young people are limited by what they see in their home and their neighborhoods. These types of workplace opportunities are such a great way to open people’s eyes to that experience and help these young men and women find their full potential.”
After the first event, which targeted private sector employers, the city planned separate events geared toward nonprofits and foundations, and its upcoming town hall in June will focus on training. ”There are some ideas coming out of the town halls that we’re thinking about implementing,” says MacKenzie Garvin of the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Neighborhood Development.
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Columbus, Ohio
Through five town halls and one strategic planning session, stakeholders across sectors came together over fresh brews, bringing fresh ideas on how to bridge the gap between out-of-work youth and businesses in need of employees. (There are more than 20,000 opportunity youth in Franklin County, where Columbus is located, alone.) “Through our meetings, we’ve been able to discover the challenges that these groups face in addressing opportunity youth and also the challenges that the youth themselves face,” says mayor Michael B. Coleman, emphasizing the importance of young people joining the conversation.
Through the Solutions City Initiative, Coleman says that many organizations and community partners learned about each other and can now work together “to help expand and elevate their work.” Coleman and his team will now transition from a convening role to a planning role, figuring out next steps to meet the needs of opportunity youth in the city.
Orlando, Fla.
While it was announced as one of the five Solutions City partners, Orlando has yet to hold any conversations with the community. “When we were approached to be part of this exciting initiative, we explained that we had several town halls for new initiatives under way and wanted to wait to get those completed until we embarked on the Starbucks project,” Kathy DeVault, director of strategic partnerships in the Office of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, tells NationSwell via email.
The city however, says that it plans to return to the opportunity next month. “We have had several discussions with Starbucks about our desire to convene town halls that will address opportunities for youth, with a focus on the potential for bringing more STEM programming into our After-School All-Stars program which serves some of Orlando’s most at-risk middle school students,” DeVault says.
While the full impact of the Solutions City Initiative cannot be known until more of its ideas are implemented, the program is undoubtedly good press for the convening power of the coffee giant. As Taylor admits, Starbucks is in business at the end of the day, and the initiative is part of their bottom line. As the company looks toward the future, they want to have a pipeline of prospective employees and connections with communities that could be home to future locations.
Who knew there is that much opportunity in a cup of coffee?
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(Homepage photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
What We Can Learn From Our Veterans
As more and more service members take the long and winding trip home, America is bracing for their return. But beyond the stories of struggling with adjusting to civilian life is a group of men and women who are returning to make amazing contributions including volunteering, feeding the homeless and building playgrounds.
But rather than recognizing these accounts along with those of vets who suffer from mental illness or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), most of these stories go unheard.
That’s because fewer than 1 percent of Americans have participated in the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan (only about 5 percent if family members are included) — a stark contrast to previous generations who had direct connections to military life.
But a new book from Howard Schultz, chairman and chief executive of Starbucks Coffee, and Washington Post correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran is seeking to change that disconnect and help weave our veterans back into the American narrative. “For Love of Country: What Our Veterans Can Teach Us About Citizenship, Heroism, and Sacrifice” details numerous accounts of life on the warfront and how the valor and bravery of our service members transcends back home.
“In 1946, if your neighbor was watering the street at night because he was kind of crazy from shell shock, you knew that everyone coming back wasn’t crazy because your brother or son or husband had served and was successfully transitioning,” Chandrasekaran tells the New York Times. “We don’t have that common understanding anymore. So if someone goes and shoots up Fort Hood, there are all those people who think all vets are a bunch of killers-to-be. And that’s not the case. So the aperture needs to widen.”
While politicians and media continue to focus on vets who struggle with life back home, Schulz and Chandrasekaran aim to illuminate accounts — even those who suffer from trauma or injury — of service members who have made huge contributions to or continue to thrive in business, education, community service and government.
“We want the legacy of this generation of veterans to be serving with courage when the country called on them to serve overseas and then, when they came back, making the country stronger through continued service here at home,” says Eric Greitens, a former Navy SEAL and Rhodes scholar.
In 2007, Greitens formed Mission Continues, a nonprofit that connects about two dozen teams of veterans with community service across the United States. The group works with nonprofits and offers veterans fellowships to volunteer for six months while providing a food and rent stipend. More than 1,000 fellows had volunteered at 600 various groups by mid-2014, according to the Washington Post.
Of course, there are plenty who still struggle with the transition, and it is our responsibility to ensure they’re welcomed back with respect. The Office of Veterans Affairs estimates that around 11 to 20 percent of more than 2.4 million post-9/11 veterans suffer from PTSD, and while more companies are pledging to increase the number of veteran hires, it’s important to diminish the bias that all vets are damaged, and that those who are, are not worthy. More than anything, it is these men and women that can teach us about leadership and valor.
“It is I who should be learning from you,” Schultz told a group of West Point cadets while speaking about leadership in 2011 . “You are the true leaders.”
It’s a lesson we should all remember.
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Here’s How Starbucks is Fixing the American Education System
This news will probably justify the expense of your next Frappuccino.
In a surprising announcement, Starbucks is giving an amazing new perk to its workers across the country: A free college education.
The New York Times reports that the coffee powerhouse will pay tuition for any of its 135,000 employees to attend online college classes at Arizona State University as part of the Starbucks College Achievement Plan.
Incredibly, workers don’t even have to remain with Starbucks after receiving their degree — encouraging them to leave coffee-making for better jobs. Starbucks president and CEO Howard D. Schultz told the newspaper that he wants employee success to be “accreted to our brand, our reputation and our business,” and adds, “I believe it will lower attrition, it’ll increase performance, it’ll attract and retain better people.”
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To qualify, an employee must work at least 20 hours a week at Starbucks and have the test scores necessary for admission into ASU. Employees who’ve already completed two years of college credits will have their tuition fully paid for. For those with less than two years of college, the company will pay partial tuition costs.
The company is also providing a dedicated enrollment coach, financial aid counselor, and academic advisor.
The fact is, the American education system is flawed; our $1.2 trillion student loan crisis proves it. These days, you need a college degree in order to land a competitive, well-paid job — but too many people have to go into a mountain of debt to obtain a degree. As Schultz says in the video below, “the last few years in America, we have certainly seen a fracturing of what I’d loosely describe as the American dream or the American promise.”
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He continues, “there’s no doubt the inequality within the country has created a situation where many, many Americans are being left behind. And the question I think for all of us is, ‘Should we accept that, or should we try to do something about it?'”
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According to the Times report, “70 percent of Starbucks workers do not have a degree but want to earn one; some have never gone to college, some have gone but dropped out, and others are in school, but have found it slow going.”
While employer-paid college tuition isn’t something new, it’s not very common. And programs like this are unheard of. Most companies want their workers to study subjects that will suit the company’s needs, while Starbucks allows employees to choose from 40 of ASU’s educational programs, from retail management to electrical engineering. (It’s also worth mentioning that the very successful global coffee company also offers health care for all employees — full- and part-time — and gives stock options, too).
As we previously reported, Shultz is the quintessential social innovator and philanthropist. This past March, he donated an extraordinary $30 million to help with the rehabilitation of our returning soldiers, putting the money towards research into brain trauma and PTSD — ailments that thousands of warriors suffer from.
Let’s go ahead and say it: Best boss ever.
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