Hope Bean is ready to fuel the valley

As summer time catches up with the valley, kids are buzzing, raring to get out of the classroom. The only question is, where will they all be for those three months of freedom? 

For some, there are summer camps that have been calling their name since last year’s leaves turned brown, others will head to work, hoping to fill their pockets with enough change to get them through the next school year. 

There is a divide, however, between those two age groups that Gunnison Valley Mentors is hoping to connect with this summer.

“There’s definitely a gap for kids in the summer,” said Megan Jelinek, lead case manager at Mentors. “We’re hoping to fill the gap for youth summer job and entrepreneurial skills.” Those in between ages, or tweenagers, are left home alone all summer. 

Mentors has a Summer Work Crew program to help give those 7th, 8th and 9th graders a sense of purpose, readiness and job preparation. 

“Hope Bean,” a fully equipped coffee shack, is Mentor’s latest addition and they’re hoping to open doors in the second week of June. The operation will be entirely run by the Youth Voice Visionary group, a collection of students from Gunnison and Crested Butte. Currently, the group is made up of four girls from Gunnison and one from Crested Butte. They’ve been hosting weekly meetings to discuss logos, menus and scheduling. The entire project is youth-lead. 

Hope Bean will be supervised to help give kids readiness training, giving them a sense of expectations, professionalism and attendance, while also giving them the space to solve their own problems. 

Open from Monday to Thursday, the coffee house will be entirely donations based, all of which will funnel back into the Gunnison Valley Mentors program to be used as youth stipends. 

The Summer Work Crews give kids options. Volunteering six to 12 hours a week, kids can choose between helping at Mountain Roots, trail building, helping at the Assisted Living housing, landscaping, working in the recycle center and more, including Hope Bean. All participants are given a stipend and real world entrepreneurial skills that can carry over to the rest of their lives. 

Gunnison Valley Mentors is devoted to giving youth in the valley the stepping stones to create more connections and collect the skills to help improve their lives. 

Hope Bean will open its doors outside the Mentors building on 101 N Main St.