Witchy potions and goblin cauldrons aren’t the only things bubbling up during this spooky season. Since June 24th, the Brewing Futures Mobile CAFE has entranced the city of Oshkosh with a spell served up by students from the Special Education department.

Brewing Futures comes courtesy of the second brainchild of transitional job coaches Kristine Steinhilber and Patti Kimball. Following the success of the Wildcat CAFE, Kimball wanted to continue the program outside of West and expand its reach into the community.

“We saw a gap,” she said. “The only people that get to see the good things Special Education students do at work are the people we serve at West.”

Steinhilber wanted to expand the outreach of the CAFE program.

“Our students can work and our community needs to see it,” she said.

Kimball was driven to create the Brewing Futures Mobile CAFE to clear away misconceptions about special needs workers.

“When the students graduate and go out, we are going to ask the community to hire them,” she said. “But the community doesn't understand what abilities they have or what skills they have because they don't get to see them at work.”

Steinhilber recalls the moment the duo decided to take on the food truck journey.

“It was February 2020, and we were sitting in the media center after school,” she said. “We wondered ‘what are we going to do? Are we gonna show the community that these kids can work?’ So, we came up with the idea of a food truck.”

So began their 18-month endeavor to branch out in the community. As fruitful as the results were, Steinhilber admits that the journey did not go without bumps along the way.

“When we were buying things during the pandemic, the supply chain was an issue and we couldn’t find a truck or builder who would make it Americans with Disabilities Act accessible,” she said.

Steinhilber and Kimball have had to play the balancing game to tackle opening Brewing Futures Mobile CAFE alongside their day jobs.

“We are transitional job coaches, so our job is to see what your life looks like after high school,” Steinhillber said. “We were doing all that through the day and took phone calls on breaks and worked after school hours.”

Steinhilber wanted to make sure that the design of the truck aligned with the message they wanted to convey.

“The sides of the truck are filled with coffee bean vines against a to-go cup,” she said. “Within the vines are books, computers, calculators, and graduation caps. It’s all about learning through the CAFE to get jobs.”

Steinhilber appreciates the responses to the thought-out details of the design.

“People in education and people who have disabilities get it immediately when they walk up to the truck,” she said.

Despite Brewing Future’s recent opening, Steinhilber and the students have been busy working at events all throughout the community.

“We’ve been to 41 places already since June 24,” she said. “We still have another 20 to go.”

The mobile cafe has already gained beneficial exposure for student workers, opening up contacts that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

“At our second venue we went to, the people were already interested in contacting our workers for more jobs,” Steinhilber said. “Students get jobs at Goodwill, Panera Bread, New Moon. They get jobs at different places that we've seen at venues, because that’s what we based the CAFE on.”

Despite pursuing similar goals, there still lie differences between the Wildcat and Brewing Futures Mobile CAFE.

“The menu changes according to the venue for Brewing Futures; whatever they want us to sell, we sell,” Steinhilber said. “The prices are also more on the food truck menu than they are here at West.”

Steinhilber attributes these differences to be catered towards the different audiences they serve.

“Our menu at the Wildcat CAFE is based on what the Wildcats tell us they want,” she said. “We learned that the public wants something different.”

The Brewing Futures Mobile CAFE also entails more details and stakes with the addition of wages.

“Kids are getting paid,” Steinhilber said. “They punch-in, they punch-out. It’s a paid position to be on the truck, so here you learn customer service and how to problem solve.”

Kimball knows just how important the hands-on experience will be for special education students once they get into the workforce.

“Project Search, an internship program at the hospital through the district, did an assessment on the kids,” she said. “They could physically see the difference between the kids that worked at our CAFE and the kids that haven’t.”

Steinhilber and Kimball are proud of the new opportunity they have helped to create.

“Our business is great, we wake up every morning wanting to come,” Steinhilber said. “It has been infinitely more joyous than we expected. Our community has just embraced it.”

by Fareeha Ahmad

Published October 3, 2022

Oshkosh West Index Volume 119 Issue 1

Mobile cafe brews up future opportunities for students, treats for community