When Angie was a teenager growing up near Minneapolis, Minnesota, she attended meetings throughout high school with an organization called <a href="https://treehousehope.org/">TreeHouse</a>, which is committed to bringing hope to teens by providing free transportation and meals, support groups, one-to-one mentoring and financial and college readiness.

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She still vividly remembers one of the volunteers, Cheryl, who donated her time and money to help make delicious home-cooked meals for the kids, including – when Angie was 16 years old – a Thanksgiving spread with baked turkey, mac and cheese and pumpkin pie.

“All the things you see in movies … I was like, I finally understand what it means to be full on Thanksgiving,” says Angie, 23. “I’d never had a Thanksgiving up until that point, and I was just so taken aback. (The TreeHouse volunteers) were all happy, and they were talking about the things that they were thankful for.

“They told us that they were thankful for us, for being us.”

That validation, Angie says, helped her become who she is today: a Starbucks store manager in St. Paul, Minnesota, and a college student studying accounting, in position to give back to the organization that once helped her.

Before the pandemic, she volunteered during TreeHouse’s meal nights. During the ensuing shutdown, she reached out to kids through texts and Zoom, helping with issues like social isolation and distance learning.

“This organization was a vital part of my upbringing,” Angie says. “For the first time in my young life I had reliable adults, a meal to look forward to every Tuesday and Thursday and stability even through my very unstable life.”

Earlier this year, she helped TreeHouse secure a $1,000 Neighborhood Grant from <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/the-starbucks-foundation/">The Starbucks Foundation</a>, to help maintain its fleet of vans for transporting teens to and from programming and activities. It required filling out an in-house nomination form through the Starbucks partner (employee) hub portal. Angie wrote about her history with TreeHouse and why she thought TreeHouse deserved a grant.

“I just feel so happy they were able to get that money, and continue doing what they’re doing, because it’s awesome work,” Angie says. “I feel grateful that I am in a place now that I can, at least somewhat, help – a little bit, just a tiny bit for the amount that they were able to help me.”

Leveraging Starbucks values and resources

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Since 2019, The Starbucks Foundation has awarded more than $10 million to more than 6,000 nonprofit and charitable organizations through its <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2021/strengthening-communities-through-neighborhood-grants/">Neighborhood Grants initiative</a>. All the organizations have been nominated by Starbucks partners. The program operates under the guiding principle that Starbucks partners know their communities best, and local impact is most meaningful when it starts with them.

The next opportunity for Starbucks partners to nominate organizations is during Season of Cheer from Dec. 5-18. The focus will be on organizations working on homelessness, hunger relief and supporting youth and families. Partners are encouraged to choose organizations they are actively engaged with.

For Angie, Starbucks was her first job; she started as a barista at age 16. She enjoyed talking to people and took pride in her work. Encouraged by one of her store managers, she applied for leadership positions and started taking classes towards her accounting degree through the <a href="https://www.starbucks.com/careers/working-at-starbucks/education/">Starbucks College Achievement Plan</a>, which provides 100 percent tuition coverage at Arizona State University’s online program.

When she learned she could serve her community through the Neighborhood Grants program, she immediately thought about TreeHouse. The Twin Cities-based organization, which has a mission to “end hopelessness among teens,” creates safe spaces for young people and helps them take on barriers to employment and education. TreeHouse serves more than 3,000 teenagers at more than 50 sites across 10 states.

“I am passionate about this organization because I see the work that they have done with my old middle- and high school peers and myself,” Angie says. “We never felt alone or unheard.

“I feel like, I’ve only ever been on the receiving end. I want someone, like a little Angie somewhere out there, to get the same things I did … People were so selflessly willing to help me. I hope that I can do the same.”

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Angie, a store manager in St. Paul, Minnesota, volunteers with TreeHouse, a youth organization that mentored her as a teen. She also helped the organization receive a Neighborhood Grant from The Starbucks Foundation.

Full circle: Starbucks partner gives back to non-profit that helped her as a teen

Stories to inspire and nurture the human spirit

Starbucks Stories

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Frank Martinez is the kind of person others count on. Take the time Daniel Sanchez ran short on eggs.

Sanchez supervises nutrition services at <a href="https://www.myresourcecenter.org/">Resource Center</a> in Dallas, one of the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning community centers in the country. In addition to a hot meals program, Sanchez oversees a food pantry that serves more than 800 people living with HIV each week. So, when he needs eggs — or fresh produce or canned goods or frozen foods — he needs a lot of them.

That particular time, Sanchez recalls, he put in a call to Martinez, who in turn worked his phone contacts at local grocery stores. The result: 600 dozen eggs, delivered to the center’s doorstep.

“That’s the kind of deal that Frank does all the time,” Sanchez said. “He’s just a loving, caring person. He’s always right there.”

Last year, Martinez began working as a barista at a Dallas Starbucks where his enthusiasm for helping out Resource Center prompted his manager to nominate it for&nbsp;a Neighborhood Grant from&nbsp;<a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/the-starbucks-foundation/">The Starbucks Foundation</a>. The Neighborhood Grants program helps build sustained local impact and inspires increased partner volunteerism with nonprofit organizations in communities. Since the program began in 2019, The Starbucks Foundation has contributed more than $5 million to nearly 2,500 nonprofit organizations focused on COVID-19 community response, advancing racial equity and more.

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As part of the latest round of Neighborhood Grants, which begins today, The Starbucks Foundation will award $2 million total to more than 1,000 local nonprofit organizations across the U.S. and Canada. This giving initiative is unique in that Starbucks partners inform The Starbucks Foundation to how to make meaningful community contributions. It’s one of the ways Starbucks partners have strengthened their communities for decades, such as through holding clothing drives for unsheltered families, doing giving trees in stores, hosting events for military families, donating meals to local food banks and writing notes of encouragement to front-line responders.

Martinez, 49, has been volunteering for Resource Center for more than two decades. As a young gay man in his early 20s, he first sought out the center’s HIV education and prevention services after moving to Dallas from his hometown, Houston.

“Twenty-five years ago, the HIV/AIDS epidemic was still very scary,” Martinez said. “The best way to combat that was to get educated about it.”

The center grew out of a foundation formed in 1983 to advocate for equal rights for the gay and lesbian community. As AIDS began its rampage, the founders mobilized to help the community survive.

Today Resource Center remains the primary HIV/AIDS organization in North Texas. It also now offers an array of programs for middle- and high-school LGBTQ kids, seniors, women, Black men, and transgender and gender non-conforming adults. The programs aim to combat isolation, promote mental health and generally foster community.

‘I needed to find something to give back to’

From the beginning, Martinez wanted to do his part to help, too. Soon after arriving in Dallas he’d landed a good job as a bartender at one of the town’s popular gay bars. His way of celebrating his good fortune? Pass it on.

“When good things started happening to me, I felt I needed to find something to give back to,” he said.

Martinez said he’s found a sense of purpose in the volunteer work he does for the Resource Center community.

“It’s very grounding,” he said. “Any time I think I’m having a challenge in my day or in my life, I help someone whose challenge is so much greater — and they’re handling it with such grace. It’s inspiring.”

Martinez, in turn, has inspired others, including partners from his store who have volunteered with Resource Center. Recently, Starbucks recognized him as a “Community Champion” for the difference he has made and his impact on the community.

“Frank is a true servant leader who builds deep connections with people in the community and continually strives to help support them in the best way possible,” wrote his district manager, Maleah Moran.

Martinez and his husband, Michael Albee — now also a Starbucks barista at a different Dallas location — even chose to have their 2017 wedding at Resource Center. If they were going to pay to rent a venue anyway, they wanted their money to go back to the community. They encouraged guests who wanted to give them gifts to donate to the center instead and set out vases at each table to serve as tip jars for donations.

Martinez’s heart lies with the center’s food program, especially at Thanksgiving. The center holds its Thanksgiving meal early in the week to allow its staff and volunteers time off with their families, sending clients home with extra groceries to tide them over the long weekend. But Martinez hated the thought of anyone spending Thanksgiving Day alone.

So 10 years ago, he helped organize a meal on the holiday itself at the Round-Up Saloon and Dance Hall (voted the nation’s best gay country-western bar), where he worked. He and his fellow volunteers passed out fliers at Resource Center’s meal earlier in the week. Then, back at the saloon, they covered pool tables with plywood to hold the bounty of donated and volunteer-prepared food, with Igloo coolers of iced tea and Kool-Aid set out on the bar.

The first year they drew 50 people. By 2019, they fed 400.

“Clients from different agencies would go to the Round-Up,” said Joey Avila, a longtime Resource Center volunteer who attended Thanksgiving dinner there himself. “The homeless people in the neighborhood would go. Word got out, and homeless people downtown would take the bus in. Everybody would leave full and happy.”

With sit-down tables and entertainment, the Thanksgiving event didn’t feel like a soup kitchen — it felt like dinner and a show.

Creating community, even in a pandemic

Then in March 2020, a new epidemic— COVID-19 — struck. Both Resource Center and Martinez stepped up yet again.

The center’s nutrition team is giving out more food than ever. For now, everything is bagged and picked up curbside. But Daniel Sanchez is working hard to keep the sense of empowerment and community that the center has always encouraged.

“We are doing virtual cooking classes,” he said. “A lot of our clients felt isolated and alone. The cooking classes made them feel connected again. We find ways to reach out even for a brief moment. When they come to get food, we get to see them, even if it’s curbside.”

Last November, Martinez knew he could not safely host his usual Thanksgiving gathering. But his longtime volunteers and the businesses that always donated still turned to him. He realized that they were counting on him just as much as the people he had fed were.

“People rely on me to organize something,” he said. “They want to know they’ve done something at the end of the holiday season. That feeling was there this holiday season more than ever. I thought, ‘There must be something I can do.’”

So, organize he did. Giant tents, outfitted with portable heaters, arose behind the Round-Up and the nearby JR’s Bar and Grill. Volunteers and businesses donated coats, blankets, nonperishable food, toiletries and bottles of then-impossible-to-find hand sanitizer to give away.

And this time Martinez had help not just from his bartending friends but from colleagues at his Starbucks store. &nbsp;

“It wasn’t what we normally did, but it was the next best thing to do,” he said. “And to see my fellow partners come out to represent Starbucks …” Martinez paused, his voice welling with emotion. “They knew it wasn’t going to be glamorous. It was going to be cold. It was going to be outside. They did it with grace and smiles.”

Martinez, as usual, took inspiration from the effort. 2020 had been a challenging year, personally and professionally. He was helping his mother care for his aging grandmother. And he had left the Round-Up to move into management at another bar — just in time for the epidemic to close the bar and scuttle the manager job.

Getting hired at Starbucks, he said, “jump-started” him.

“I just feel the company has been so good to me this last year,” said the man who has been so good to so many others. “I’m hoping I can bring my experience with philanthropy and community outreach to do more under the Starbucks umbrella.”

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Frank Martinez has been giving back to Resource Center and LGBTQ+ community for more than 20 years; now his store is supporting the organization through a Neighborhood Grant.

For a new Starbucks partner, volunteering at Resource Center in Dallas is a commitment

For a new Starbucks partner, volunteering at Resource Center in Dallas is a decades-long commitment

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Updated March 26, 2023

Starbucks has always been about great coffee.&nbsp;But we are much more than that.

Coffee has the power to fuel human connection—bringing people together and building community all at once. Our mission is to inspire and nurture the human spirit, one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time. That means working to strengthen the communities we serve. And because we know that it is our partners (employees) who know their neighborhoods best, our impact in local communities is most meaningful when it begins with them.

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The Starbucks Foundation supports a wide range of causes that Starbucks partners are passionate about addressing in their communities, such as:

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Since 2019, more than 65,000 Starbucks partners have participated, resulting in Neighborhood Grants totaling more than $12.5 million to more than 8,000 organizations across the U.S. and Canada. &nbsp;

The most recent round of nominations during Starbucks Season of Cheer in December 2022 saw record participation from Starbucks partners across U.S. and Canada. The Starbucks Foundation recently announced it is awarding 2,000 grants totaling $2.5 million to organizations nominated by partners. These grants will support organizations that are addressing homelessness, fighting hunger and supporting youth and families.&nbsp;See the latest list of grant recipients <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2023/03/The-Starbucks-Foundation-2023-Season-of-Cheer-Neighborhood-Grants-Awards.pdf">here</a>.&nbsp;

Learn more about previous Neighborhood Grants:

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About Neighborhood Grants

<a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/the-starbucks-foundation/">The Starbucks Foundation</a>’s Neighborhood Grants program supports grassroots, community-led nonprofit organizations through catalytic investments in the form of small grants that range from $1,000 to $10,000. Through this unique program, The Starbucks Foundation invites Starbucks partners to nominate a local organization in their community. Neighborhood Grants also help build sustained local impact and inspire increased partner (employee) engagement with nonprofits organizations that work in our communities.

Since 2019, Starbucks partners have nominated organizations across the U.S. and Canada, with more than 8,000 organizations receiving a grant, amounting to more than $12.5 million.

Strengthening Communities Through Neighborhood Grants

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Last month, Jay McNair received a surprise gift that brought back fond memories of his Starbucks journey.

Cara Castellow, a barista in Winterville, N.C., had nominated NC CIVIL (Community &amp; Industry Value Interactionist League), a nonprofit organization in Greenville, N.C., for a <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/the-starbucks-foundation-selects-more-than-400-non-profits-in-latest-round-of-neighborhood-grants/">Neighborhood Grant</a> earlier this year. When she heard back that NC CIVIL was awarded a $2,500 grant from The Starbucks Foundation, she waited a couple of weeks before calling Jay, as she wanted the nominator to be anonymous and a surprise at first.

Jay founded NC CIVIL to strengthen the local community by focusing on outreach and partnership development with other organizations, businesses and community members for community-based initiatives that activate young people and residents as change-makers in underserved neighborhoods. The partnerships also aim to improve access to training, mentoring and community resources for job seekers, including at-risk youth, as well as remove barriers within hiring processes to promote equity and create a pathway to employment opportunities.

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Jay happens to be a Starbucks alum who worked as a barista at Cara's store before she joined Starbucks and is now their regular customer.

"Jay is a good person, and NC CIVIL focuses on finding community-based solutions that create effective change. A community-centered organization like NC CIVIL knows their community and always has the community at the forefront of their minds," Cara said. "I was so excited and thought it was super cool to see the grant happening on a personal level."

When Cara finally called Jay to let him know that she had nominated NC CIVIL, he had already been notified of the grant and deeply appreciated her support.

"I'm really honored and encouraged that someone thought enough of our work to put time and energy into filling out an application on our behalf," Jay said. "It came from an unexpected place, which means so much. I'm truly grateful."

When Jay began his Starbucks journey as a barista in 2010, his store manager was aware of his passion for doing community work and created opportunities for Jay to lead the store's community service efforts to support him. In this role, Jay gained experience in spearheading service projects and built relationships in the community, which boosted his confidence and drive to launch NC CIVIL in 2013.

"I grew up in an underserved neighborhood in Greenville and wanted to create an organization that supports and strengthens the local community that I came from," Jay said. "Starbucks ended up being my launch pad that provided opportunities to get involved in the community, develop connections, and step out on my own."

As Jay's work with NC CIVIL expanded and grew busier, requiring more of his time, he decided it was the right moment to leave Starbucks in 2015 to focus on his passion and love for doing community work.

"Working at Starbucks was an awesome experience and I really valued my time as a partner in so many ways," Jay says. "Starbucks has been a huge part of my journey, and I'm thankful for that time and the connections, and especially my Starbucks family who I'm still connected with and is so much a part of my life story."

Partners give Starbucks alum an unexpected gift - Starbucks Stories

Partners give Starbucks alum an unexpected gift

Former Starbucks partner receives grant from The Starbucks Foundation to support a local nonprofit that he launched to support youth and neighborhoods.

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Partners give Starbucks alum an unexpected gift to strengthen Greenville community

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The Starbucks Foundation has awarded $1.5 million to more than 400 nonprofits, nominated by partners, which are stretching to meet the rising need during COVID-19, particularly in the BIPOC communities. We spotlight three of them.

Jamila Coleman never turns her phone off – not when she sleeps, not on weekends, not on holidays. Never. If a girl needs her support, she wants to make sure someone is there to answer the call.

It’s what she says she wished she had when she was a little girl. Coleman, who grew up in the foster system, is the executive director of You Grow Girl!, a Seattle-based nonprofit.

“For me, it’s about my own internal trauma of not having someone there on the other end of the phone and trying to break that cycle,” she said.

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<a href="https://www.yougrowgirl.org/">You Grow Girl!</a>, which Coleman founded 18 years ago, focuses on inspiring girls and young women through mentorship, counseling, leadership and more. These days, in the midst of a pandemic, the “more” part has taken on new dimensions. The accountants on staff are now also starting to teach common core math to girls struggling with online school. Coleman and therapists are doing porch drop offs for food and other basic needs supplies on the porches of 10 to 15 families a week, something You Grow Girl! didn’t budget for this year but “as long as the card goes through each week, I’m swiping it,” she said.

“We wear many hats here,” she added. “I only get paid for one hat but it’s a magic hat, so you’ve got to keep flipping it.”

More than 400 grants from The Starbucks Foundation

In the midst of COVID-19, which is disproportionally affecting people of color, a racial justice movement and a struggling economy, nonprofits are stretching to meet the need. In response, The Starbucks Foundation recently awarded Neighborhood Grants to You Grow Girl! and <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2020/the-starbucks-foundation-awards-neighborhood-grants-to-advance-racial-equity/">more than 400 other nonprofit organizations</a> in the U.S. and Canada. Recipients of the awards, which totaled $1.5 million, were nominated by Starbucks partners, with priority given to Black-led grassroots nonprofits that serve Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities.

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“The research shows organizations led by people of color tend to receive fewer donations,” said Aldrinana Leung, manager of The Starbucks Foundation. "Through this round of Neighborhood Grants, we sought to recognize organizations that create more inclusive communities by promoting economic mobility and opportunity, delivering health and social services, and working with youth.”

All of the nonprofits were nominated Starbucks partners across the country, many of which have ongoing relationships with nonprofit organizations in their communities.

"The Starbucks Foundation wanted to tap into the on-the-ground knowledge of Starbucks partners to impact local communities,” said Alicia Vermaele of The Starbucks Foundation. “The Starbucks partners are each members of a community and understand the needs and opportunities in their neighborhoods and the local organizations serving their communities. We are in a really unique position to listen to insights from partners through the Neighborhood Grants nominations process.”

Vermaele said that she hopes the Neighborhood Grant program helps to strengthen the web of community support by fostering the connections between local nonprofits and store partners &nbsp;in the form of volunteering, hosting community drives and more.

&nbsp;“The opportunity for the connection with partners and the deepening of that relationship is where the magic happens,” she said.

You Grow Girl! was nominated by more than 50 Starbucks partners for a Neighborhood Grant from The Starbucks Foundation to help respond to the rising needs. Prior to COVID-19, You Grow Girl! served 100 girls a month. Now that number has increased to 150 and will likely keep climbing.

“The pandemic happened, a racial crisis happened, flu season is about to happen,” Coleman said. And, the holiday season is when You Grow Girl! sees an increase in mental health needs.

‘This is their family’

Staff members don’t call those served “clients,” but rather “participants” to honor their commitment to work toward healing, she says. She also calls them her sisters.

“We want to acknowledge they belong here, and this is their family,” she said. “I define family not by blood but the power of healing together, collaboration, how we learn from each other and grow with each other and sometimes agree to disagree.”

Coleman was 7 when she went into foster care following her birth family’s struggles with substance abuse and incarceration. “I struggled with trust and finding a place where I belonged,” she said.

Where she belonged, it turned out, was with Gracie Robinson, a domestic violence counselor who became her foster mom. “Ms. Gracie,” as people call her, is retired now but still active in volunteering with social service organizations, including You Grow Girl!. (“She shaped me to the woman I am today,” Coleman said.) Coleman’s daughter, 19-year old Annara Morn, is a college student who also works with the organization as a youth mentor. One of her foster sisters, Mila Presnell, is the administrative services director

Both Coleman and Mila were placed with Robinson a few years apart and remained connected even after Presnell returned back to her birth mother. Coleman aged out of the system at 18.

‘We’re all human at the end of the day’

Zoe Peralta-Page is a You Grow Girl! therapist who is also a Starbucks partner. Peralta-Page did an internship with the nonprofit as she was finishing her master’s degree. When the pandemic began, she took a leave from her job as Starbucks shift supervisor to work full-time for You Grow Girl! and help meet the rising need for mental health services.

“It boils down to the hierarchy of needs – food, shelter and access to services,” she said. Sometimes that means connecting the girls with a program for free internet. Other times it has meant supporting those in foster care cope with not seeing their birth families after the state suspended parental visits due to COVID-19.&nbsp;&nbsp;

“We’re all human at the end of the day and we’ve got to help other people who are going through it too,” she said.

Coleman originally founded You Grow Girl! to serve girls in the foster system, but now it’s open to any girl who wants support, with a focus on BIPOC communities. The organization offers its sisters tools for sustainable success, Coleman say, starting with mental health care as a foundation. From there, if the goal is to get an apartment, the organization helps make sure they have everything they’ll need to not only reach it, but to maintain it, such as an ID or driver’s license and a stable job and an understanding of what it will take to pay bills.

“In the real world, that’s hard to do. Those life skills are not taught in school,” she said. “And your family didn’t teach you those skills because they weren’t taught because the cycle hasn’t been broken. Let’s address that.”

At You Grow Girl!, no one has to do it on her own, she said.

“We are a sisterhood and we all contribute,” she said. “There’s hard work where we constantly have to push roadblocks out of the way but that’s what I signed up for. Family and allyship means being there.”

‘Community is the reason I’m here’

For former Starbucks partner Shyheim Banks, community is nourishment for the soul. A self-proclaimed extrovert, connecting with customers and coworkers during his shifts as a barista came naturally. When he wasn’t at work, he was also a hip-hop artist, poet and activist, so it was a melding of his passions when he was offered a full-time role with <a href="https://www.1hood.org/">1Hood Media</a>, a Pittsburgh nonprofit that aims to raise awareness on social justice issues through song writing, photography, videography and other forms of art.

A year later, when Banks’ former manager Jesse Maxwell nominated 1Hood Media for a Neighborhood Grant from The Starbucks Foundation, the feeling of community has come full circle.

Banks says he is driven by a moral commitment to serve the youth in his hometown. “If it wasn’t for the community that I’m a part of, a lot of the opportunities that I’ve been granted wouldn’t have happened,” said Banks, who also goes by his artist name Treble NLS. “Community is the reason I’m here.”&nbsp;

Growing up, Banks said he experienced struggles with mental health, but the art and music community helped him feel supported and that he had a place where he belonged.

“I was reminded I’m not just one person going through things, I’m one person in a community going through things.&nbsp; Knowing that you’re not the only one really does something for you,” Banks said.

1Hood co-founder Jasiri X and Banks met through their shared involvement in community events, seeing each other at performances, protests for racial justice and more. “He always showed up, always with a positive spirit,” Jasiri remembers. “He wasn’t only emerging as an artist, but as a real leader in the community.”

At 1Hood, Jasiri says Banks is an asset not only as a member of the 1Hood team, but as a resource and role model to next generation of artists and activists. Banks, who now teaches songwriting, poetry and music engineering at the non-profit, has a calm demeanor that is counter-balanced by his positive, passionate energy, say those who know him.&nbsp;

“He’s such a kind soul,” said Maxwell, his former Starbucks manager, “the kind of presence you miss having in the store.”&nbsp;

Banks said his time at Starbucks helped lay the groundwork for his current role. “Working at Starbucks allowed me to connect with people,” he said. “They let me be me.”

1Hood, which was founded in 2006, serves both youth and young adults and offers media literacy training, conflict resolution and classes and workshops on songwriting, vocal instruction, music production, blogging, photography and videography.

“We need to be advocates for the young people in our community,” said Jasiri, “our power is in our unity.”

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Banks led programs for 1Hood at the Shuman Center, a juvenile detention facility, to teach young artists how to refine their writing skills and find their own true, authentic voice. Watching students flourish in their artistic expression is therapeutic, said Banks. “It provides me with purpose and shows me that my work is needed, my words are needed. It makes me feel like I actually have a place here in society.”

Both Banks and Jasiri said they found their own voices through music and want to provide the tools and resources for others to do the same. “The more opportunities we can give young people to use their voice,” said Jasiri, “the more opportunity we have to connect with them on other topics.”

‘Genuine love will change you’

In the historic Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C., the Starbucks Community Store and the family and youth center Children of Mine are actual neighbors, though in the five months since the store opened, they’ve found they share far more than an alley.

“This organization does what we also try to do at Starbucks – to provide hope, strength and inspiration for our community. To create a passion for service. To create opportunities. Nominating them (for a Neighborhood Grant) was a no-brainer for me,” said Tyron Shumate, store manager of the Starbucks.

“Plus, if I walk out our back gate, it’s maybe 125 feet to their door. That’s one of the other reasons it made so much sense for us to collaborate – we’re pretty much taking up the whole block, so we might as well be in cahoots,” Shumate said, laughing.

<a href="https://childrenofminedc.org/">Children of Mine Youth Center</a> has provided nearly four decades of quiet, steadfast support for families in the neighborhood through after-school programs, activities and meals, many of which are not just for children, but for the whole family.

Shumate has been particularly inspired by Eugene Howie, the center’s executive director, who quickly looked for ways the center could adapt to help meet the unique needs of families in the time of COVID-19. The center has had to pause much of its in-person programming, but each day at 4 p.m. provides dinner for children in the neighborhood. On Fridays, the organization provides dinner plus a “weekend bag” full of food and snacks to help carry children into the weekend. Howie said the grant from The Starbucks Foundation will help fund hundreds of those meals. And we’re not talking sack lunches here.

“We do homestyle meals. Burgers and hot dogs. Lasagna and French bread. We serve some of the best fried chicken in the city, and it’s not from a restaurant, which is very cool. And we have an urban farm, which we try to incorporate into our meals as well. Nobody has to be hungry,” Howie said.

Howie grew up in Anacostia and has watched as each chapter of its complicated story unfold. The neighborhood has one of the best views of the U.S. Capitol in the city and is the place to watch fireworks over the National Mall. It is known for its food, style, hip-hop and history – it was home to abolitionist and statesman Frederick Douglass. But the early 1980s, when a woman named <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/hannah-hawkins-who-started-child-care-program-in-gritty-dc-neighborhood-dies-at-75/2015/05/23/8dc99c02-f9a2-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html">Hannah Hawkins</a> started providing hot meals from her apartment to neighborhood children as well as giving them clean clothing and lessons (an effort that would soon become Children of Mine), she did so to a backdrop of drugs, drive-by shootings and police helicopters.

“When Children of Mine got started 38 years ago, this neighborhood was really, really tough. But no matter what was going on, this organization stood. We have been there, quietly impacting families starting with the child at the center, then their parents, then the community, working to strengthen that circle from the inside out, and the outside in,” Howie said. “When I tell you I grew up here, I was here. I was a paper boy. All of the transitions, all of the changes, I’ve been here for them. To see Starbucks come to the neighborhood, that’s a pretty big deal.”

In just a few short months, Shumate and Howie – who share a passion for service and community building – have already formed an energetic and formidable team. A team of neighbors.

“Why does any of this matter? For us, it’s about love,” Howie said. “No matter where people come from, what walk of life, background, color or geography, love is what binds a community and makes it strong. We don’t have to always agree or even get along, but when I think of the why behind it all? I’ve watched how showing love on a consistent basis can take a person who is hostile or angry and change their very nature. Genuine love will change you. That’s the real why, is to show and promote genuine love so we will have the community we’re all aiming for.”

The Starbucks Foundation awards $1.5M in Neighborhood Grants to advance racial equity

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Photo credits You Grow Girl!: photos by Joshua Trujillo 1Hood Media: photos by Vernon Young Children of Mine: photos by Ting Chen

The Starbucks Foundation has awarded $1.5 million to more than 400 nonprofits,which are stretching to meet the rising need in the BIPOC communities.

Three Black-led nonprofits respond to unprecedented times

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https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/three-black-led-nonprofits-respond-to-unprecedented-times/

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In June 2020, <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2019/starbucks-equity-and-inclusion-timeline/" data-type="URL" data-id="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2019/starbucks-equity-and-inclusion-timeline/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Starbucks Foundation committed $1 million</a> in Neighborhood Grants to promote racial equity and create more inclusive communities.

Since then, The Starbucks Foundation has invited experts from the philanthropic, nonprofit and civil rights sectors to help inform the identification and selection process of the nonprofit organizations. These grants are focused on supporting organizations that are Black-led and/or serve Black and Indigenous communities and are dedicated to promoting economic mobility and opportunity, health and social services and youth. With that criteria in mind, thousands of partners nominated an organization advancing racial equity in their community or voted on nonprofits suggested by others. Based on the volume of partner engagement in this round, The Starbucks Foundation has awarded an additional $500,000, for a total of $1.5 million in Neighborhood Grants awarded to more than 400 nonprofit organizations across the U.S.

View the full list of selected grant recipients <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2020/10/FY21Q1_NeighborhoodGrants_RacialEquity.pdf">here</a>.

Neighborhood Grants are intended to help build sustained local impact and inspire increased partner volunteerism with nonprofit organizations that work in our communities. Since the program launched in September 2019, thousands of Starbucks partners have participated in the giving program by nominating organizations, helping The Starbucks Foundation award nearly 2,000 grants amounting to nearly $4 million to nonprofits across the U.S. and Canada.

About The Starbucks Foundation

The Starbucks Foundation strengthens humanity by transforming lives across the world, with a focus on enabling community resiliency and prosperity and uplifting communities affected by disaster. Established in 1997, The Starbucks Foundation is a Section 501(c)(3) charitable organization under U.S. law.&nbsp; Neighborhood Grant recipients are nominated by Starbucks partners and final decisions are made by The Starbucks Foundation based on eligibility criteria. <a href="https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/community/starbucks-foundation">Click here to learn more.</a>

The Starbucks Foundation awards $1.5M in Neighborhood Grants to advance racial equity - Starbucks Stories

The new grants from The Starbucks Foundation support organizations that are Black-led and/or serve Black and Indigenous communities and are dedicated to promoting economic mobility and opportunity, health and social services and youth.

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https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2020/the-starbucks-foundation-awards-neighborhood-grants-to-advance-racial-equity/

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