Six months ago, 30 year-old Adriana Garisto was struggling financially.

Today, she's one of 14 junior business developers in the Kanien'kehá:ka community of Kahnawake running Tóta Ma's Café, an enterprise established for a new employment program, Achieving Concrete Essentials (ACE).

"I was really excited about it. I haven't been able to work in a kitchen in a while or be with involved with food," said Garisto.

"I missed it."

Garitso went to culinary school when she was 18, but hasn't worked in a kitchen consistently in years due to taking care of a sick family member. With the program, she's learning on-the-job experience by being responsible for creating the café's menu, standardizing drink recipes, as well as balancing cost and quality.

It doesn't mean you're an expert. But you know what you have to do. - Kaylia Marquis, program co-ordinator.

"We use quality ingredients, but we purchase enough to get a discount," said Garisto.

"I also have to think about storage space. We have enough dry storage, but only one fridge.

"As for food, I try to figure out what customers might want: healthy, tasty food, fresh fruit, snack foods, and desserts. I base some of this on experience and some on observation. We also want our offerings to include vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and diabetic friendly."

Gaining practical skills

The program, which was created by Kahnawake's economic development commission, bridges the gap between underemployed youth and entrepreneur services.

Garisto and the other participants had classroom instruction, workshops and heard from guest speakers to receive a crash course in budgeting, advertising, customer service and business planning.

Their skills were put to the test with the launch of the café and they will operate it until the end of August, when a new cohort takes over.

"If you do decide you want to pursue a business, you'll know what kind of work you need to do," said Kaylia Marquis, program co-ordinator.

"It doesn't mean you're an expert. But you know what you have to do."

From left, Colton Cross, Emmitt Hamelin, Adriana Garisto, Thea Thomas and Meadow Rice. Fourteen young adults were hired as junior business developers in the Kanien’kehá:ka community of Kahnawake to run Tóta Ma's Café, a social enterprise established for a new employment program Achieving Concrete Essentials (ACE). (Jessica Deer/CBC)

Reality of running a business

While not everyone in the program will immediately launch their own business, Marquis said the goal is for them to gain practical skills and to understand what it takes to manage a small business.

"Our hope is that the people coming through are getting stronger at that level of self-awareness to say 'I want to work in this area,' or 'I definitely know this is not for me' and we'll support them in those directions," said Marquis.

That's been the experience so far for Emmitt Hamelin, 24. He applied for the program with the interest of running his own business, and said it has helped him realize he's not ready to do that yet.

"I came into it thinking I was going to be all set up and have a business started by the end of it," he said.

"Once I noticed how much work and how much money you are going to have to spend on it, I decided to push it back a bit. As of right now I do not feel financially ready to start and I still have different things that I would like to do before I start planning a business."