Stepping Stones Cookie Bar
The Stepping Stones Cookie Bar is a small business that supports the local community by providing students with mild disabilities a setting to gain hands-on experience with all aspects of a business, in addition to returning 50% of the profit to the Stepping Stones School. The other 50% goes to support the COINS Foundation, which is another member group of Attend. In addition to being a cookie shop, the Cookie Bar also provides other services to support the community. In the shop, they display art exhibitions for local artists, with part of the proceeds going back to Stepping Stones. They also provide training on computers for the elderly.
The Cookie Bar idea came from COINS CEO, Larry Sullivan, who envisioned the Cookie Bar as a business to be run by students and to benefit those same students with the profits. The Cookie Bar opened its doors to the public in October 2011. Since then they have provided local patrons with cookies, coffee and other community services.
The Cookie Bar helps to give the student workers the valuable experience they will need to become social and economic contributors, as well as helping to achieve greater financial independence for the Stepping Stones School.
The Cookie Bar provides short-term and longer positions for students at Stepping Stones. These positions, some of which are paid, help to improve the students’ business skills and build their confidence. One student, David Pitman, worked at the Cookie Bar for a fortnight and greatly improved his mathematics skills by working with real money. Neil Clark, the Headmaster at Stepping Stones, says that the experiences the students gain in the real life scenarios at the Cookie Bar are very helpful to the children.
The Cookie Bar has been a member of Attend since the beginning of 2012. They hope to take the plans for success provided by their current shop and expand to new venues in order to further support their school and community.
Created July 19, 2012
Stepping Stones Cookie Bar were former members of Attend. For more information, or to join, please click here.
