Did you read our 2021 impact report yet? If so, you know our job training cafe took its hardest hit last year, and we’ve been trying to “revive” the cafe. We had actually planned to re-open in January, but still being understaffed, it simply wasn’t feasible. But, we did bring back the weekly pre-orders, so our students could actually bake and practice one to two days per week. Some weeks had really good sales, and other weeks, there were hardly any pre-orders at all. It’s been challenging to figure out, but there’s been good things seeping in along the way.
One good thing is we finally opened to the public the last week in May. We launched with a worship night and had more sales with food, beverages and pastries than any other previous event during the last three years! Everyone working that night was excited to see people pack in, support us, and eagerly gather to worship. You could sense both the joy and hunger of people wanting to worship Jesus collectively. We were supposed to close at 9pm but people kept singing and praying together until way after. There were at least five different church groups represented and that was cool to see.
Another good update is we’ve hired a new trainer named Waew, who started that same last week of May. Hence, the reason we started opening the cafe back slowly, starting with just three days per week in June and making sure four of our more skilled trainees were confident in systems and recipes, while our new staff learned our style too. In July, we had an old friend rent the cafe for “after school” workshops for Thai elementary-aged children. The cafe team would host three to four workshops per week, which brought in a new group of customers and also gave us a little hope that the rental model might still be an effective business model for us. When we compare the last two years, there were eleven weeks during July/August 2021 that we pushed pre-orders and now we’ve been open eleven weeks this year. We’ve already seen a 40% increase in our sales when we compare last year’s weekly average to this year’s weekly average.
We are now open four days a week (since August 1st) and are learning a new food delivery app. Our four trainees/students are helping in morning shifts, while still able to study and meet with social workers in the afternoons. They are super excited to have the consistency of hands-on practice and eager to have more customers walk through our doors. Our other students aren’t ready to work daily shifts yet, but they are growing weekly now as they get to learn alongside the others 1 to 2 times per week too.
I’m personally really thankful to a few specific people here within Thailand (and in England) that know how hard it’s been the last three years. When they knew closing the job training program/cafe wasn’t our desire, they immediately sought to help us get back on our feet! First, Maddy has done an amazing job with our cafe’s social media. Another friend is coaching us on business development, while another couple are working on rebranding/updating our website and online presence. Two others are helping with all sorts of moral support, training, legal steps of food apps, and overall being more enthusiastically affirming in our overall vision (when I start to second-guess or doubt). They’ve honestly rallied Chompuu and myself to remember the importance, value and need for our tiny little job training program in this massive, competitive city.