YPSILANTI, MI - An initiative headed by two Ypsilanti women that's been at least two years in the making is now taking some of its first strides toward making a difference in Washtenaw County.

The initiative, called Soul Project, is the brainchild of Keri Roche and Christine Szabo, both of whom work at the Delonis Center homeless shelter in Ann Arbor, and both of whom care deeply about helping women in at-risk situations.

Soul Project is Roche and Szabo's soon-to-be nonprofit whose stated mission is "to empower and provide purpose to women struggling with homelessness, addiction, domestic violence and other at-risk situations."

Though not quite off the ground just yet in terms of gaining 501-c3 status, Soul Project still is underway with its first big initiative: a partnership with Sweden-based Wheelys Cafe that will allow Roche and Szabo to offer employment opportunities to disadvantaged and vulnerable women in the county.

The undertaking, which they have dubbed "Roasting for Roofs," is a career development program, as described by Szabo, that requires the purchase of a mobile coffee cart that "will give women the opportunity to get to work, be employed."

"Sometimes, people in at-risk situations are faced with not being able to find a job because they have a felony, or multiple felonies, or they haven't had super concrete work history or anything like that," Szabo said. "So, (Roasting for Roofs) offers women that opportunity to essentially become an entrepreneur and really work for themselves."

Roche said a lot of the young girls she sees coming through the Delonis Center seem to get lost in the system because they aren't given the opportunity to thrive, to make a living for themselves in a healthy way. She believes Roasting for Roofs can be an antidote for that, a way to give disadvantaged women a sense of purpose.

"Christine and I both, we're very open about how we've struggled in our own personal lives with lack of empowerment due to homelessness or addiction," Roche said.

"We figured having this coffee cart is going to give us the opportunity to engage, as well as employ, women and hopefully raise money and awareness for the need of an emergency shelter year-round in Washtenaw County."

The Soul Project co-founders estimated their total start-up costs for a Wheelys Cafe coffee cart at right around $12,000, and so set up an online fundraising campaign through IndieGoGo to start raising that money.

While the IndieGoGo campaign was able to raise a little more than $5,500, Roche and Szabo recently experienced a bit of a windfall in the form of a large donation from Zion Lutheran Church in Ann Arbor.

"Pastor Jim (Debner) and pastor Vicky (Lovell) have joined forces with us and they're allowing us to use their commissary kitchen, as well as storage, and they've just donated $9,000 toward our cart," Roche said. "As you can imagine, things have gotten really real (now)."

Rev. Debner, who serves as senior pastor at Zion Lutheran, said his congregation was fully behind supporting Roche and Szabo in their efforts with Roasting for Roofs.

"We as a congregation want to support that type of ministry," he said. "It's certainly filled with love and honoring people where they're at (and) we're just thankful that we can partner with them in this - that it aligns with all of our mission and aligns with how we feel about the world and the community around us.

"It's just a win-win for everybody."

With this first cart, Roche said they would like to have shifts available for three to five people a day. Depending on the kind of support they receive, more Wheelys coffee carts could be on the way.

Roche and Szabo see Soul Project's community outreach efforts going beyond Roasting for Roofs, however.

"I see more programs coming out of this, out of Soul Project," Szabo said. "I would definitely like one-on-one counseling, meetings for support. I would like other kinds of creative programs to assist and support women, and eventually maybe even men.

"My ultimate goal for a long time now has been to get to a point where we have a shelter or a transitional house/home, so people can kind of start and learn together."

Having both dealt with trying situations in the past, Roche and Szabo say they realize how important even the smallest actions can be.

"If someone didn't reach their hand out to me in a time when I felt hopeless, I don't know that I would have continued to go on," Roche said.

"It's the fact that Christine and I sort of have this hope, and we want to 'chain react' that."

Roasting for Roofs' initial launch will be in Ann Arbor.

For further information on Soul Project, visit oursoulproject.org. Donations for the cause can now be made here.