Foothills Advocacy In Motion Society, (FAIMS) has partnered with George Freeman School to help run the Falcon Cafe three days a week.

Starting at the beginning of February, the school has been giving FAIMS a space to bake and prepare snacks every Monday in order to sell to the students. Some of the snacks offered include fruit and veggie cups, banana bread, and cookies. Then on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays the group opens the cafe to students of the school.

Beverly Roppel, Program Manager for FAIMS, talked about when the idea first came about. She said, it started earlier in the year when the school approached them. The group first started by helping with recycling. After a while the school approached FAIMS to see if the group would like to help run the cafe.

Roppel said, “It gets us as an agency and the individuals that we work with out in the community and know. People understand the abilities that they do have, and not worry about their disabilities.”

According to Roppel, the student body has embraced the group who runs the cafe. She said, the students like to come down and visit with the group.

Some of the skills that the group are learning in the cafe are cooking skills, money skills, and retail skills. Roppel said, in the future the group is going to be learning some cooking skills, as hot lunches will be added.

Roppel said, eventually she would like to see it become a paid program for the individuals working the cafe, and to hopefully see the students come participate with the group.