Lisbon's Brew Devil Cafe delivers more than just coffee and donuts
Every Friday morning, teachers in Lisbon get coffee and donuts hand-delivered by a special group of students. In return, those students are learning something even more valuable.
It's become a Friday ritual at Lisbon's David Anderson junior and senior high: students in Mrs. Kalinay's class, packaging fresh donuts, coffee, and hot chocolate and then and delivering them to teachers as the Brew Devil Cafe.
"On Monday mornings, they take order slips down to the office. They put slips in all the staff mailboxes. Throughout the week, they check that. We tally our orders on Thursday. They count the money, make change, put those back in the staff bags. And then Friday is our busy day of filling orders, delivering, and then clean up," said middle school intervention specialist Gretchen Kalinay.
It started last school year as a simple way to earn a little money for field trips and activities but ended up being even more of a teaching tool than anyone imagined.
"It's honestly been amazing and rewarding. We've been able to see them grow maturely into young adults that are out delivering. They're working on social skills. They're working on soft job skills," said Kalinay.
Fifth-grader London Devine is the go-to guy for coffee.
"Being a barista guy and work on coffee," said Devine.
"It's just nice because you learn how to be polite, and you be kind to people, and you just go out and meet different teachers that you might get next year," said 5th grader Aurora Hunt.
They wheel a cart around room by room, all decked out in their tuxedo t-shirts, filling each order down to the last detail.
"Walking in and giving them donuts and asking them if they want creamer or anything if they wanted it," said 5th grader Riley Baker.
"It shows them different things that they can do; very social. Getting the food ready, organizing things, how to use money and stuff. And then you can see it teaches them to be comfortable in things that they're not used to," said high school English teacher Daniel Votaw.
After they've made their way through the entire school and finished their shift, they get paid in the best way possible, with donuts.
"At the end, we get a donut," said 7th grader Justin Sandoe, who chose a glazed donut on this particular Friday.
A sweet treat and a pretty sweet program, delivering every Friday.
Mr. Votaw actually helped the class get those tuxedo shirts, which Mrs. Kalinay calls the official "Brew Devil uniform."
The Brew Devil Cafe name came from last year's class, a tradition that looks to have a strong future.