Tom LaVenture/The Garden Island
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LIHU‘E — The road to recovery is full of obstacles, but one organization has proved an inch of willpower and a “continuum of care” are all that’s needed for success in work and life.

Plantation Coffee Co. opened in August 2011, and the cafe was established as an opportunity for ex-offenders to improve skills in customer service, food service, responsibility and dependability, shipping and receiving, inventories and all aspects of running a small business. Participants say that it is also an avenue to self empowerment and a meaningful reintegration to the community.

“We don’t get sick calls,” said Arvin Montgomery, CEO of Love The Journey, a nonprofit organization that runs the coffee shop. “There are no hangovers, the tills don’t come up short and the food does not go missing.”

Love the Journey offers structured assistance and transitional living to participants, including ex-offenders, as they transition back into the workforce and the community. It is meant to be a program not with a beginning and an end, but as conditioning for a lifestyle that participants choose to live.

“This is the face of what we do,” Montgomery said. “It’s about getting people back to work. We don’t sell coffee to make money — we sell coffee so that we can hire more people.”

As the for-profit arm of the nonprofit, the Continuum of Care program of Love the Journey has take-in business, but is most successful with take-out delivery and catering contracts to local businesses and tour companies.

Profits are reinvested into the program, Montgomery said. Donations will also go a long way to reducing rent for a men’s home and allowing them to pay off their fines as soon as possible, he added.

The plans for 2013 include an upscale version of Plantation Coffee, increasing catering contracts, a restaurant and bakery and a kiosk at Kaua‘i Community College. Related projects in the works include another men’s home partnerships with landscaping, contracting, small businesses and employment agencies.

“That is the direction we are going in,” Montgomery said.

Empowerment through employment

Phrystal Bacio, manager, said she began working with Love the Journey and the program helped her prepare for her eventual incarceration, and then connected her with the Women in Need program for housing and counseling when she was released.

“That was just the start,” Bacio said. “When I got out, my felony records prevented me from getting jobs.”

After paying off fines and getting her driver’s license back, she said things started to feel more normal. Ongoing case management and success in programs on social skills, goal setting and personal development helped stir leadership potential and resulted in a management position.

Sheena Millare, assistant manager, started out as a walk-in, helping out with dishes and prep work until she was eventually hired on as a barista.

“It’s all about how much you put into this place,” Millare said.

The staff talked about a sense of empowerment that comes from positive working relationships. As recovering addicts, they said the rewards from succeeding with responsibilities helps them to stay clean amidst the pressures and job hunting challenges.

“My college degree in business was negated by a felony,” said John Adkins. “I could do excellent in an interview and prove my skills but the background check will get me every time.”

Adkins is in charge of sales and marketing. He said Love the Journey is an avenue to new opportunities and a network of support to avoid falling back to old ways and old acquaintances, he said.

“I had to surrender to the fact that I need help,” Adkins said. “I was scared at one point when I thought I was cured and wasn’t. At that point you begin to realize there is so much help out there but you just have to ask for it.”

The personal accomplishments give a sense of purpose and soon begin to outweigh the tendency to fall back and lose everything that was gained, Montgomery said. It is about helping someone find their barriers and working through them in steps.

“It’s not something they do on their own,” he added. “They have peers in the program that are (a part of) the Continuum of Care.”

Kawika Kuali‘i, a barista and cashier, is about to complete the final phase of Love the Journey after seven months. He said they are taught to be a living example because most addicts won’t listen to their advice until they rock bottom themselves.

“It is everywhere and there is peer pressure,” he said.

Recapturing lives

Around 30 people have entered the program over the past two years, Montgomery said. So far one has completed all phases and three more are nearing the end.

Others have opted out in favor of in-patient care, or have returned to their families. Others felt they didn’t need the program and some of them have re-offended, he added.

“The goal is for them to recapture their lives,” he said. “It is a process and the phases are like the lines in a crosswalk.”

A coffee shop candidate is brought in for a probationary period and it will be up to the staff to determine if they will join the team.

“If we feel that a recovery is in jeopardy then we don’t put them in that situation too soon,” Montgomery said.

The goal is to make responsible, hardworking employees from people that would at one time not have been trusted to hold one dollar, Montgomery said. With nurturing you get people who are loyal, dedicated and an example to other addicts of what life can be like.

“All it took was just somebody showing them that they cared and wanted to walk the path with them and do this together,” Montgomery said. “That is really all that most of us need is the feeling of feeling needed and love.”

One common element is to teach different personalities how to work and socialize together in a positive framework. Those are skills everyone should work on, Montgomery said, and the support system is the foundation.

“A big part of the learning experience is learning how to be independent,” he said. “How to live out here in the world means learning how to get along with others.”

The phases are timed but it’s a guideline to moving forward into school or work while in a safe place to reintegrate back into society.

There is an incremental approach to goals, and as people accomplish small goals, they gain confidence in making bigger ones, he said.

“A lot of the barriers are internal,” Montgomery said. “The ‘I can’t’ barriers that we can work on to build self-esteem and direction.”

More than benchmarks

Montgomery has a degree in psychology, and is certified in cognitive skills training and as a substance abuse counselor. He starting Love the Journey in 1999 as a series of workshops with his wife Melinda, who is now chief operations officer.

Melinda is currently implementing the Professional Readiness Employment Program (PREP Academy), which is another workforce transition for ex-offenders made possible with a grant from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. A revision allows staff to spend more time with people who have nothing to build a resume, she said.

“We are spending a lot more time with them and not going after the big numbers,” she said. “We don’t want to just meet benchmarks.”

Sean Scates credits Love the Journey for all his progress. He said the drug culture before his conviction does not compare to what he has now from living and working with people who watch his back through thick and thin.

Regaining control over his life has been its own reward, Scates said. The momentum and self-worth started when Montgomery began working with him in jail and picking him up the day he was released.

Scates said the programs in jail helped but that there was little in transitional planning. The work furloughs and opportunities were extremely limited, he said.

In addition to his program, Scates is now volunteering in the community and working jobs in landscaping and roofing. He was selected to manage a Clean and Sober House, operated by Love the Journey.

“I’m not the favorite guy in the house all of the time,” Scates said. “I have to find my voice and speak on it. Other than that the house runs itself.”

The restaurant offers coffee and tea varieties along with pastries and desserts. The health-based breakfast and lunch menu includes soups, salads and sandwiches.

The shop is located in the Lihu‘e Plantation Building just behind the Rice Street Post Office at 2970 Kele St.

Read the menu at www.plantationcoffeecompany.com and www.lovethejourney.org.

• Tom LaVenture, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or tlaventure@thegardenisland.com.