Luke Fleming and Will Carlson have a passion for coffee. And it all started when they met as teenagers in their temporary foster home in Sonoma County.
“He was so hungry that he pretended to eat an eraser. And demanded that we have something to eat, and I was just a little bit… I was really scared then, I was in a new city, and when he that made me feel right at home and laughing,” Carlson told CBS News Bay Area.
One laugh turned into nearly two decades of laughter, as Carlson and Fleming became best friends over the years.
They remember their very first job, which they got through the foster program, as baristas at a local coffee shop.
“How to be a barista, how to operate a point of sale system and unfortunately it’s a parking lot now, but we took a lot of inspiration from that,” Carlson said.
With that inspiration, Carlson and Fleming are now starting Shane’s Coffee, their own coffee shop and trailer in Sonoma County.
“Every minute I’m awake, outside of my day job as a social worker, I come home and do 100 shots, do 100 latte arts and just keep that practice going like everything else,” Luke Fleming told CBS News Bay Area.
Both Fleming and Carlson attended Sonoma State University and work full-time as clinical social workers. But through all these years, their love for coffee has never stopped.
The idea quickly dawned on them: how can they turn something as simple as a first job into something more?
“The ability to have a job, to reset everything where it wasn’t just us being troubled youth, or nurturing youth. Suddenly we had jobs, and cars and people who believed in us,” Carlson said. .
They wanted to find a way to instill that faith in others.
“It is not lost on us, as children who have grown up in the foster care system and often receive services through the foster care system or similar systems, that this can be stigmatized,” Fleming said.
They want to employ people with disabilities, mental illness and those in the foster care system at Shane’s Coffee.
“Shane was a best friend of mine when I was younger who unfortunately passed away. He also struggled with some mental health issues, but Shane kind of had an effect on people where when you walked into a room, everyone felt welcome,” Carlson said.
They started raising money online and through social media and decided to take the idea where their story began: the Valley of the Moon Children’s Foundation in Sonoma County.
“They’ve come so far in their careers, in their lives, and they’re pretty much vulnerable to that risk. And we are beyond proud of these two young people,” Laura Colgate, board chair of the Valley of the Moon Children’s Home Foundation, told CBS. Bay Area News.
She added that Carlson and Fleming were not only exceptional in their foster care, but also received scholarships over the years.
“We don’t just give you money. They apply, we interview them, we determine their scholarship amounts, we track them through their grades, through their GPAs, through their chosen field, through whatever changes they make,” Colgate said.
After Carlson and Fleming’s presentation, an anonymous donor was touched by their passion and donated $60,000 to fund their coffee trailer.
“To be in this position where we want to give back, create a system where they can work with the Department of Rehabilitation and train people while giving back to the community and raising money for Shane’s coffee, in my mind, is nothing short of a miracle.’ she said.
Carlson and Fleming plan to open their store in August of next year. They plan to purchase the trailer sometime in January.
“We plan to move, we plan to go wherever there is a need for good coffee,” Fleming said.
He added that they are actively seeking business partners in Sonoma County and across the Bay Area where they can park their RV on their property during their operating hours.
“We want to be at farmers markets, we want to be at events, we want to be at festivals. I think we’re going to be busiest on the weekends because we’re going to take that trailer and go everywhere, hopefully all over the Bay Area and maybe even further,” Fleming said.
He added that he hopes their employees, ranging from 10 to 30 staff members, will gain practical skills and go on to do bigger things, just as they did.
“I am a former UCLA Bruins grad,” Carlson said.
“And I’m a Berkeley Bear,” Fleming said.
“If it starts with coffee, great. But if we can also get into other things like treatment, therapy, whatever it may be. But the ultimate goal, I think in Shane’s legacy, I dare say, we want really help.” people,” he added.
