Emily Balli

The Republic | azcentral.com

A new job-training program and community room debuted at a Phoenix Starbucks on Thursday as part of an ongoing initiative to grow the local economy and help youth who are unemployed and not currently in school.

The community room of the store on Seventh Avenue and Camelback Road has “Local contractors, local partners, local love” posted on wooden beams above the entrance. The room features a large table in the center and coffee equipment near the back that will be used to train young people who participate in the program.

The Starbucks mission statement on display in the room also adds to the sense of community: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit — one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”

The community room at the Phoenix location is a part of a larger nationwide initiative by Starbucks to support job training and social change in at least 15 diverse, low-to-medium income communities in the country, according to a news release from Starbucks.

The space is meant to be a place where young people ages 16 to 24 who are currently unemployed and not attending school — “opportunity youth,” in Starbucks' words — can receive free customer-service and leadership-skills training in a two- to three-week course.

Store manager Martin Amador said he is excited about the future of the program and hopes that it will engage and bring the community together.

“My vision for the store is to step out of the four walls and immerse ourselves at Starbucks into our community so that we can better ourselves here in Phoenix and Starbucks and our organizations around us,” Amador said. “This is our space to bring them in so that we can have a partnership together.”

The training will be led by Arizona Call-A-Teen Youth Resources (ACYR), Starbucks baristas and other local organizations. The goal: Give "opportunity youths" the tools and skills they need to succeed in the professional world.

The program will train the youth to work at any business, not just Starbucks.

Starbucks also will be partnering with local businesses owned by women and members of minority groups, including Sassy Cakes, a bakery owned by single mother Nina Payne.

Barista: 'Paying it forward'

Starbucks barista Riyahna Outlaw, 26, has been with the company for a little more than four years and said she shares a special connection with the young adults who will be participating in the program.

“We are all honored to be paying it forward, especially myself, because Starbucks has paid it forward in my life very much so,” Outlaw said.

“Starbucks has been a safe haven for people of all ages and all walks of life since the 1970s,” Outlaw said. “In my four years I have encountered a lot of people and heard a lot of stories, mainly from homeless youth who I can identify with because my mother was an addict and I grew up on the streets. ... So I know how it is, I know that it’s hard, I know what it’s like to want to give up.”

When Outlaw started at Starbucks, she said she was 20 years old, homeless, unemployed and a single mother, but Starbucks welcomed her with open arms and helped her turn around her life.

Outlaw said Starbucks is more than a job or a company to her — it’s a way of life and the people she works with are her family. Outlaw added that she is looking forward to helping the youths in the program in any way she can.

Stanton: A hand up for disconnected youth

At the kickoff event Thursday, Mayor Greg Stanton said he is proud of the city’s partnership with Starbucks.

“This is the most creative program to support disconnected youth that I’ve seen,” Stanton said. “If a young person takes advantage of this training and gets a job at Starbucks, they’ve got that job training, they’re on a career path and they can get an education from ASU and get a four-year degree. There’s no other program like that in the country.”

Starbucks partners with Arizona State University to offer its eligible employees full tuition coverage to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Stanton also said that training opportunity youths in Phoenix not only benefits those individuals taking advantage of the program but also the city’s economy.

“If we don’t solve this issue, the lost income is billions and billions of dollars cumulatively on an annual basis,” Stanton said. “We can’t accept that; I don’t accept that. So we need not just government and some individual companies like Starbucks to really take this issue to heart.”