YACRO opens cafe, puts businesses under one roof

“It’s going to be a little bit of everything,” he said, explaining that the idea was to pull together various existing YACRO operations – including its bookstore, rag-making service and coffee delivery service – along with some new ones and have them in one location.

“They just started as little things and we realized that all of a sudden we have all of these things going on,” Walker said, referring to the different programs YACRO has initiated over the years involving people with special needs and the decision to put them under one roof.

Well known for what it does with regard to residential options, Walker notes that YACRO wants to offer more to its clients than just a place to live, which is what its business activities are meant to do.

Of The Shanty Café Consignment & More, he said they want to make it “a supportive employment centre and we’re trying to make it a place where people go to work and they can say ‘You know what, this is my job…I’m important. I have things to offer and things to give the community.’”

As its name suggests, the site will take on consignment products people might like to sell.

YACRO has received a good deal of support for this initiative from many people, including its staff and board, the YACRO foundation, as well as local businesses.

“Everybody has been really supportive and I think everybody recognizes the importance of this and it’s fairly self-evident, if you think about it, that it’s important that people have lives,” Walker said, referring again to the notion that YACRO’s clients need more than simply residential support.

He acknowledges that some of the people YACRO supports may already be working in the community and won’t want to be involved in this new venture the organization is embarking on, while others, perhaps because of the severity of their disability, may be unable to work.

As for the YACRO business activities now housed at 6-B Central St., Walker notes that they’re inclusive “and by inclusive I mean they’re not segregated. We want people to inter-mingle with the businesses in town, with the people in town.”

Trying to apply business principles to the residential-care aspect of its work is new for YACRO, he said.

The organization is not competing with anyone, he said, just trying to provide their clients with something meaningful and positive.

In reference to YACRO’s hopes for its new café and business centre in downtown Yarmouth, he said, “We want to be part of the community and we want people to come in, people with disabilities, people without disabilities, and just feel really comfortable (in a) place where it’s enjoyable to be and to spend time.”