On Wed, 30 Jul 2003, Jan Moore wrote:
> I am planning a coffee house for my HS, if my principal agrees. I meet with
> him this week to discuss it. I do plan on offering coffee (decaff) but will
> also have sodas and an urn of hot water (in winter, at least) with tea,
> cocoa, and hot cider mix available. The local donut shop is going to donate
> their day old goods. I'll charge a small amount to make the activity
> self-supporting.
>
> My feeling is that the name "coffee house" sounds collegiate and that the
> kids love it, but you don't have to serve java if you don't want to. Serve
> Kool-Aid and animal crackers but get the kids there and make it casual and
> fun.
>
We have a "coffee house" too. We do sell Starbuck's coffee but the
teachers are the only ones who buy it. That's good tho because teachers
are one of our target audiences! We want more teachers to come to the
library too.
We also have the cold, bottled Starbuck's Frappucinnos. Our best sellers,
however, are juices and V8 Splash - and Snapple fruit drinks. Hot
chocolate and hot cider are popular during the cooler months. Water is
popular year round. We keep a fridge in the back well stocked and have
one of those water jug dispensers that has a hot water spout we use for
hot chocolate, noodles, etc.
A local bakery delivers goods to us just as they do other
establishments. So we serve fresh muffins and cinnamon rolls too.
We also serve noodles and pickles....
We originally called it The Motown (a take-off on our school name,
Mojave). The library is undergoing an artistic renovation this summer
and adopting a Mojave sw desert theme so we have changed the name
accordingly: Chuckwalla's (the chuckwalla is a big, plump
lizard native to the Mojave). One wall will be decorated with
photos and souvenirs related to our state... including state
animals, native animals... and even the Rat Pack!
We transformed the back workroom to use as our cafe so that food
and drink are not in the library proper. Students volunteer to work
the cafe. This year we will have a student assistant who receives
credit for managing things (with our supervision of course). He's
really excited and we are much relieved to have some help. It
DID interfere with our having time to meet our regular, pre-
existing needs. We were so busy that we eventually had to scale back
and turn some people away at lunch time (reservations recommended).
This project has been EXTREMELY popular. And one of the things
I learned is this: students will eat and drink ANYTHING. There's
no need to have coffee in order to have a successful coffee shop!
One might see what vendors already deliver to the school. In
the beginning my aide and I were kept busy running to Costco
and the grocery store for supplies. We saved ourselves by
having things delivered right to our door (and they were
cheaper to boot).
We're making money on this venture. We didn't spend much of
our profits the first year - except for small things to enhance
the project (I just bought a cash register for example). But
we have plans for this coming year. We are developing a
lit committee designed to promote and encourage reading. The
cafe will help support those efforts. We also plan to
establish a literacy awards program with a spring banquet
to honor a student, teacher, community member and parent who've
supported literacy in our Mojave community. Within that same
effort will be a yearly scholarship awarded to a graduating
senior. The cafe will also be funding a program for students who
are parents - providing a book bag with a copy of Jim Trelease's
Read Aloud Handbook and a variety of paperbacks for reading
to babies/toddlers. We're calling this, "Read to me, baby!"
Oh, we bought some of those "Read to Me" bibs from ALA too.
We will include those in the book bags. We also give one to
teachers when they have a baby --> valuable PR for the library.
I'm using cafe funds to develop our audio book collection,
previously nonexistent. And I'm also using cafe funds to expand
our magazine collection. Magazines are very popular for leisure
reading in our library. We'd cut back to just the basic
titles when we moved to the databases for research support. But
I'm experimenting this year with a much broader "coffee house"
selection. I'm anxious to see how students respond.
Anyway and IOW, we're using the money to support and promote literacy.
The last day of school one of the football players came up to
me to say good-bye. He stopped and turned around and added, "And you
know, I think what you're doing up here is just so cool! I never
had an interest in the library before!"
But he was there almost every day the whole year and he brought
all his football friends with him.
We're also extremely popular with our foreign exchange students
who all say "back home" they often meet with their friends
after school at a local coffee shop instead of scattering to
the four winds as our homegrown students are apt to do.
J. Rathbun, Librarian | "You may say I'm a dreamer,
Mojave High School | but I'm not the only one..."
Clark County School District |
Las Vegas, Nevada | John Lennon
Email: jrathbun@orednet.org |
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