Serving With Purpose
Amy Wright opens Beau’s Coffee with inclusion in mind
Amy Wright has performed on Broadway, run an after-school performing arts program, and started a foundation for people with disabilities, but serving coffee might be her most meaningful job yet.
Wright and husband, Ben, are the founders of Beau’s Coffee, a nonprofit café that employs about twenty people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Since it’s opening last month, the café at 4414 Wrightsville Avenue café has become a meeting place for disabled and nondisabled alike, including students from University of North Carolina Wilmington looking for good coffee and a study break.
On the surface, Beau’s is a simple, cozy coffee shop, but for Amy Wright, the café, and the jobs it provides the disabled, are a step toward changing attitudes.
“I’ve been most surprised by the number of college students we’ve seen gathering here,” she says. “And that’s great because that whole generation being exposed to people with disabilities is really going to change our world in a big way.”
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Beau’s had a steady flow of customers as staff greeted guests and filled orders.
“Given the right support, so many of these individuals are fantastic employees – very loyal, very dependable, and certainly very capable,” Amy Wright says.
She is also the founder and president of Able to Work USA, a nonprofit organization that works to help people with disabilities find meaningful work. According to Able to Work USA’s website, 85 percent of people with IDD are unemployed.
Amy Wright says her staff is thriving, many of them enjoying a sort of celebrity status and a kind of attention they have never known. They are getting to know regulars and thinking of them as friends. Amy Wright recently posted a video to Beau’s Facebook page of her employee, Malik, receiving his first-ever tips. The video has been viewed more than 52,000 times.
“Since Beau’s opened, we have not had one employee miss one day of work,” Amy Wright says. “They show up with a positive attitude; they are hard working. They are very appreciative of the job and treat it as such. I think we can all learn something from that.”
In addition to running two nonprofits, Amy Wright is also the mother of four. Her two youngest children, Beau, for whom the café is named, and Bitty, have Down syndrome. Amy Wright says she has been looking for years for ways to advocate for her children and demonstrate to the community how capable people with IDD really are.
Amy Wright is hopeful that not only will Beau’s expand, but that it will be a model for other businesses.
“For so long, many of these people have really been marginalized,” she says. “I think that once you value people with IDD you find ways to include them.”
To view more of photographer Chris Brehmer's work, go to www.chrisbrehmerphotography.com
