Cafe creates jobs for people with disabilities
One-time supernova brings star power to a lackluster team
Last week, Diane Grover and her 14year-old daughter, Maryellen, opened Dream Big Cafe, fulfilling their own “big dream” of the past four years.
Maryellen was born with Down syndrome, severely limiting the likelihood she will be able to find work as an adult, national statistics show.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 19.1 percent of people with disabilities were employed in 2018 compared with 65 percent of people without disabilities. And that’s up from 2017, when 18.7 percent of people with disabilities were able to find work.
Further, if a person with a disability is able to find work at all, they are more likely to be employed part time than a worker without a disability.
Faced with those statistics, Grover decided she would start a business of her own and ensure her daughter would
The Johnny Manziel era in Memphis began Sunday, and it’s probably going to end poorly. It’s probably going to involve unfulfilled potential and unsavory offfield detours.
It’s probably going to be a failure just like every other pro football contract Manziel has signed since his supernova college career at Texas A&M ended.
And if that’s the case, it’ll still be exactly what the Memphis Express needed. It’ll still be a lot of fun.
So get ready, Beale Street. Johnny Football is coming to town, and the silent disco won’t ever be the same. that it is helpful for people with hearing or speech disabilities, along with people in situations where it may not be safe to talk on the phone.
The technology is not available to all parts of Shelby County — but after the next couple of months all residents in the county should have access.
“This is very significant for the city and the remainder of Shelby County over the next six to eight months,” Chiozza said.
“It provides equal access to 911 for the hearing-impaired community.
It will not be long before the text technology will be mandated at some point.”
be able to work with her and have a fulfilling career.
“I went home and I told my husband, ‘I don’t want to beg someone to hire her. Why don’t we just open our own coffee shop,’ ” Grover said. That was four years ago. Since then, Grover first launched Dreamers Merchants Coffee Co., a coffee distribution company to create a job for herself — Grover is deaf — and her daughter and others with disabilities. As she tried to sell her coffee, Grover kept running into people who believed in her cause and wanted to sell her coffee too.
She created a licensing agreement and spent a year training each person on how to start a coffee business as an independent contractor and how to market and find customers. More than 30 people — mostly parents of disabled children but also others who just believe in creating opportunities for people with disabilities — have started businesses under Dreamers Merchants, Grover said.
The Dream Big Cafe had a soft opening March 8. Its grand opening is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Thursday, World Down Syndrome Day. The cafe will serve hot coffee, “Dreamuccinos,” which are frozen coffee drinks, and “Dreamini Panini,” pressed sandwiches. The menu will grow over time.
The cafe is at 9580 Macon Road in Cordova on the property of Vantage Point Golf.
Desiree Stennett can be reached at desiree.stennett@commercialappeal.com, 901-5292738 or on Twitter: @desi_stennett.