Gallery • 7 Photos

The Weir Caffeninated menu.

Teacher Carrie Gillette started a coffeeshop, Weir Caffeinated, with her students in early December of last year to help students with work skills they’ll need in the future as part of a statewide initative to improve workplace readiness skills in the high school curriculum.

Bradley Price, a senior who attends JDRCC for Graphic Designs, designed the logo (seen above) for Weir Caffeinated.

Gillette said, “We partnered with WV DRS (WV Division of Rehabilitation Services) through a grant, which provided us with the funds to start and maintain a coffee shop.”

Along with teacher Kayla Violet, they help their students run Weir Caffeinated, selling coffee to about 35-40 teachers at both Weir High and Weir Midlle on Tuesdays and Fridays.

They sell hot and iced coffee with or without flavoring from different sauces and syrups. The picture to the left of the menu has the different falvores. They have an option of a sweet cream foam topping for the iced drinks. They also sell a variety of hot and iced teas.

Gillette said, “We charge $1 for tea and black coffee and $2 for iced coffee or coffee with flavoring. This basically helps our coffee shop operate and allows us to pay students to work Weir High Basketball games or other activities outside of school when we open the coffee shop.”

In addition to Basketball games, they sold coffee at Meet the Teacher this year and provided coffee for the winning of Halloween for Hounds.
There are about 30 students this semester who are involved in some way with the coffee shop. The students wash dishes from the coffee shop, deliver or der forms to teachers, collect order forms, prep cold coffee/make cold foam the day before coffee day, make ice in their ice maker, record orders for the week of billing information, write out billing slips for teachers, deliver billing slips to teachers, write out labels for coffee lids for Tuesday and Friday, sort orders per coffee/tea, clean the coffee shop, and put clean dishes away once they are washed. The jobs are distributed among students from Gillette, Violet and Sarah Alkire students. Gillette is responsible for getting schedules and supplies together.

When asked in an interview about what the best thing about doing this project Gillette said, “It is a great way to teach workplace skills in the real world. All of the students involved get a Food Handler’s Card through the Hancock Country Health Department that they can use if they get a job in the community. Students also gain a greater respect for their responsibility within the coffee shop.” She added, “Some students specifically do not miss school on coffee day because of their jobs in the coffee shop. Students learn how to be part of a working team.”

These students gain skills that they’ll use throughout their lifetime.

When asked about students’ responsibilities, Camari Howard said, “Basically like making sure everyone gets what they need and everyone has a special part in the coffee shop.”

When asked if working in the coffee shop is difficult, Lucas Waugh said, “Not really I do mess it up sometimes but is not that hard.”

Violet said she decided to collaborate on the project because “it was a good opportunity for my students to learn skills that would be good for them to learn for after high school.”