Loretto Foundation provides opportunities for community youth

Community Housing of Wyandotte County (CWHC) – a Community Development Corporation, partnered with A Cup on a Hill, a coffee emporium serving to create opportunities for disadvantaged youth. The program itself has been around for some time now, yet the organization hasn’t had a physical space to call home. That changed on March 20, when A Cup on a Hill celebrated their grand opening in the Katz Building, located downtown. The Katz building, once a Minnesota Avenue staple, recently underwent renovation by Loretto Properties as part of an effort to revitalize the KCK downtown area. A Cup on a Hill’s main mission is teaching job skills to area youth, but residents of the area are just have a quality café and sandwich shop.

 

Senator Jerry Moran was on hand for the ribbon cutting. “Kansas City, Kan., is really making things happen. I’m really pleased to see this is going to be good for the community and Wyandotte County as well. This coffee shop is definitely going to be a big asset to the community as well,” said Moran.

 

A Cup on a Hill has come a long way from catering events and selling bagged coffee at farmer’s markets, to moving into its own cozy brick-and-mortar shop.

 

“With the help of CHWC and other civic leaders a new coffee shop emerged,” said Steve Curtis of CHWC. “This coffee shop is unlike anything else in the Kansas City metropolitan area, a place where you can go downtown and have a great cup of coffee and good conversation as well. This coffee shop is part of the revitalization of the downtown Kansas City, Kan., area. What we did is we partnered up with Jamina Bone, who had a dream; a dream that is truly dedicated to the community.”

 

“I always had a dream to create a coffee shop in the community by which I live, to employ young people who could not normally get a job because of their disadvantages,” Bone said. “Soon we will start a new program. A program that would teach those youth with disadvantages how to write a resume, how to go our interview, and it also teaches them good work ethics, which is needed in today’s ever-changing global economy.”

 

The Loretto Foundation is a member of the Loretto Companies family, a Lamar Hunt Jr. company. Lamar Hunt Jr. is the son of Lamar Hunt Sr., founder of the Kansas City Chiefs and Major League Soccer.