At Beaumont Adult School, The Lesson Is In The Latte

It was a cold and windy Tuesday morning, but the students who staff The Beaumont Bean were more than ready to face the day.

“Everything’s running smoothly,” Holly Jenkins, one of three adult transition teachers at Beaumont Adult School, said. “Like, I don’t even have to be involved anymore.”

The Beaumont Bean officially opened last month, but this coffee shop isn’t like other coffee shops. For one thing, it’s only open from 9-10:30 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And its only customers are students and staff at Beaumont Adult School and staff at San Gorgonio Middle School.

But that’s because the main goal of the coffee shop isn’t to make money or to serve delicious coffee — though it does both. The goal, Jenkins said, is to give her students a place to learn the skills they need to be able to be more independent once they age out of the program.

“It’s just a place for them to learn these skills in a safe environment where they can’t get hurt,” she said. “It creates so many different jobs, so many skills for them to learn, and just the customer service skills, that’s just something that’s huge.”

For the cashier, the job can be challenging. Not only do they have to take the order, which includes multiple drink and flavor options, but they have to take the money, pass the order off to the students making it, make change and give the person ordering their number.

Jenkins’ students come to Beaumont Adult School after finishing high school with a certificate of completion, rather than a high school diploma. For many of them, attending Beaumont High School is the next step in their educational journey. From the time they arrive to the time they age out at 22, they work on building life skills.

“The majority of the students here are 18 to 22 years old, and they come here to learn vocational skills and life skills,” she said. “And then eventually, after this, the students will either have a job or they’ll go to a day program.”

And the benefits of The Beaumont Bean go far beyond the obvious. Not only does the coffee shop help the students working there, but it also allows her students to experience placing an order, paying for their drink and waiting for it to be ready in a low-stress, low-stakes environment.

“Some of my students have goals…to practice ordering,” Jenkins said. “Just like the money exchange, making sure they’re getting your order right, waiting for your change, just all of those things that we kind of take for granted that are part of that process.”

It also allows her students to do things like get coffee with their friends in a way that they might not be able to outside of the campus.

But it’s not just Jenkins’ students who benefit from the coffee shop. From the teachers to the students enrolled in other programs at the school, everyone The Riverside Record talked with said they loved being able to get a little treat without having to leave the campus.

“It’s right next door to us, and it’s awesome,” Eva Ochoa, a financial aid technician for the nursing program, said. “The best part is seeing the students learn and just being with the group. It’s just awesome to see that.”

As for those who work at the coffee shop, they love the experience.

“It’s very fun,” Raymond Brown, who is the student supervisor of The Beaumont Bean, said. “I get to interact with the customers. It makes me really happy, and I love making the coffee too.”

Brown, who recently turned 22, will be aging out of the program at the end of the year. He said that after his experience at The Beaumont Bean, he might even look into getting a job at a local coffee shop.

As for the money the coffee shop makes, most of it goes back into purchasing more supplies to keep the shop up and running. But they set aside some of it to be able to have fun outings. Next month, Jenkins and her students are going to see Moana 2, thanks to The Beaumont Bean.

“The little local theater is going to open up early,” she said. “We get the whole theater.”