Great community response helps foster children and former foster youth

Covenant Community Services, Inc. (Covenant) is in the process of opening a coffee-house in the space currently used as administrative offices. The Coffee House is a social enterprise of Covenant that includes specialty coffee roasting facilities, retail sales, a pour-over drip coffee bar and a full espresso bar. The purpose of the new venture is to employ former foster youth and give them hope!

The new venture will be called the The Covenant Coffee Roasting Company. The coffee-house and roasting facility will  train, employ and mentor former foster youth from the Kern County Department of Human Services in efforts to fulfill the Covenant vision of restoring lives and transforming generations. Covenant operates ten unique supports and services that focus on helping every foster child live in emotional, physical, relational and spiritual wholeness thereby ending the cycle of abuse and neglect in our community.

The building project has been challenging and yet blessed experience. As John F Kennedy said, “Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.” As Covenant builds the new structure to house a safety net for former foster youth, old barriers of distrust, doubt and defeat are demolished. It is a process yet one that will give way to hope!

Hope is a great pursuit for the youth served at Covenant. Currently, Covenant employs

five former youth from diverse backgrounds that traumatic abuse and neglect. Still, each youth is pressing on to their increasingly brightening future. A future where they are in control of their life including educational, vocational, social and relations pursuits. Hope is the glue that makes this transformation happen. Hope is the charge and the challenge as old negative tapes are erased and new positive memories are put in their place.

The building project could not happen without the support of community members, businesses, churches, organizations and foundations. When I speak of the building project I am not referring just to the brick and mortar but the lives of each youth served at Covenant. Without the influence, financial giving and individual sweat and tears of many community volunteers and donors, the coffee-house and transformed lives of each youth would remain an illusive dream. Yet, the community has responded to the challenge and we are moving forward with the goal close at hand.

The entire project is called the Headquarters of Hope (HQ of Hope). The HQ of Hope is a

landmark setting in Oildale, CA. Oildale is a suburb of Bakersfield and sits in Kern County, California. Oildale is not known for influence, affluence or beauty. Oildale is known for poverty, methamphetamine use and production and marijuana clinics.