Every Wednesday morning in Templeton, participants in the school district’s COAT program run the COAT Cafe.
The acronym COAT stands for Community Outreach Adult Transition and refers to a group of adults within the Templeton Unified School District, ages 18 to 22, with special needs .
These members are referred to as “clients,” the professional term for adults beyond school age who participate in the COAT program.
TUSD’s Director of Special Education Joe Ledoux explained how the cafe works.
“This is a program for our adults in transition,” Ledoux said. “We’re trying to teach them life skills so they can get jobs when they leave us at 22 years old.”
Clients learn life skills by performing various functions such as meal preparation, dishwashing, greeting and serving customers, cashiering, and even crafting goods for sale.
“A lot of our clients work out in the community, whether it’s for a local sandwich shop or a hardware store,” Ledoux said.
Dylan Ferreira has been a client for several years and enjoys helping run the cafe each week.
“He gets really excited about COAT Cafe,” said Dylan’s mom, Tiffany Ferreira. “He’s doing really good greeting people and hosting people.”
Ferreira said Dylan might become a server or host after he finishes the COAT program.
A patron of the COAT Cafe, Mo Huckler, said she enjoys perusing the handmade goods each week, but it’s the cafe’s joyous atmosphere she enjoys the most.
“You walk in and it’s just a warm, fuzzy feeling,” Huckler said.
Community members can stop into the cafe at 870 Old County Road on Wednesdays from 9:30-10:30 a.m. Purchases at the cafe fund future outings for COAT participants.
