A MORNING coffee cart that is open for business represents the culmination of a two-year journey for its operator, a young Redlands man living with a disability.
Chris Morris has become a qualified barista through the School Leavers Employment Support (SLES) program, offered by Capalaba disability services provider Tea-Cup Cottage.
After training at Thorneside's Blue Tongue Pantry, Chris has now landed his own job, serving coffee at the cart outside the Blue Tongue Collectables studio on Tingal Road in Wynnum.
Tea-cup Cottage director Alex Shaw said Chris was the first of the team to work at the coffee cart.
"We'll soon have more of our crew coming through to train and work - and enjoy the satisfaction, confidence and independence that comes with having your own job," she said.
And if anyone needs an excuse to drink more coffee: how about a good cause?
Fifty cents from every cup sold at the coffee cart and at Blue Tongue Pantry will go towards buying a kiln for Blue Tongue's Art and Soul studio, so artists in the program will be able to fire their own ceramic creations on site.
Barista skills are just one of many courses in Blue Tongue Adventure's SLES program: Participants are also training and working in industries like gardening in the Green Thumbs program, and retail in the Blue Tongue Collectables store.
