Group focused on social justice working to bring Curt's Cafe spinoff to Highland Park

July 18--Curt's Cafe, a restaurant-based job training program that aims to keep young people out of the criminal justice system, could be coming to Highland Park.

If supporters succeed in raising the necessary funds, the Highland Park location would be the third Curt's Cafe. The first location opened at 2922 Central Street in Evanston in 2012, followed two years later by a second Evanston opening at 1813 Dempster Street.

Curt's Cafe founder Susan Trieschmann said the Highland Park effort was started by people who are a part of Open Communities, an organization that promotes just and inclusive communities in the northern suburbs.

"They spent about a year cultivating the community in Lake County, making sure it was a welcoming community and there would be open arms for our students when they came in," Trieschmann said.

The group has raised about $90,000 so far.

"Our goal is to start looking for a location when we have raised $170,000 with an ultimate goal of raising $250,000 for the first year," Trieschmann said.

A longtime advocate of restorative justice, Trieschmann started the job training program to keep young people between the ages of 15 and 24 out of prison and reduce rates of recidivism.

"What I'd found out was that the young men and young women were not looking for handouts; they were looking for jobs," Trieschmann said. "I thought if we just trained them, we could get them jobs."

She quickly learned that job training alone was not sufficient -- the young people also needed social and emotional support. Roughly half of the program is devoted to teaching life skills and other forms of support.

"Not all of our students have been formerly incarcerated," she said. "They are all at risk of getting into the system in an unhealthy way. A lot of it is just because of the color of their skin. They haven't really had the supports that a lot of us have been lucky enough to have."

The Curt's Cafe program intentionally targets young people between 15 and 24, the age bracket where the "teenage brain" is still maturing. Most participants are about 20 years old.

To date, the two Evanston locations -- one works with males, the other females -- have served more than 200 young people.

"One of the main questions we ask the young people who enter our program is, Are you ready to try to make a change?," Trieschmann said. "We don't make them say, Yes, 100 percent, I am ready to do this. For people who have had very little success in their lives, that would make them shy away from the program. We just ask if they are ready to try."

She said 86 percent of graduates have gone on to jobs or college programs.

"Because we feed them every day, we coach them, we love them and we respect them, they stay in the program," Trieschmann said.

Highland Park resident Andy Amend said the idea of starting a Curt's Cafe in town grew out of The Justice Project that Open Communities launched in 2015. The project marked the 50th anniversary of the North Shore Summer Project campaign against housing discrimination that brought Martin Luther King Jr. to speak on the Winnetka Village Green in the summer of 1965.

Following an anniversary rally, a summit was held to keep King's vision alive and to brainstorm ways to make individual suburbs more just, inclusive and welcoming. Amend said starting a Curt's Cafe came to mind for Highland Park.

"We've spoken to hundreds of people during this campaign and they are eager and willing," Amend said. "They see this as an opportunity. We are joining with another population to benefit both communities. We want to enunciate the values of bringing people together, not just giving away dollars."

Amend said the project has strong support in the faith communities of Highland Park and surrounding suburbs.

"I don't have my head in the sand. I'm sure there are people who don't want this," Amend said. "But we haven't encountered that and we have spoken to hundreds of people. It's not just 10 people who are our friends."

kberkowitz@pioneerlocal.com

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