Special delivery
North's Green & Gold Cafe offers free coffee to staff
Sheila Doss and her students in Grosse Pointe North’s special education-autism spectrum disorders classroom wanted to give “some extra love” after a particularly difficult week. On Wednesday and Friday mornings, they run a coffee business called the Green & Gold Café, offering walk-in and delivery service. This Wednesday they offered free coffee or tea to all staff.
“We thought this was a hard week for people in school so we said, ‘We’re going to take care of each other somehow,’” Sheila said.
Staff members took them up on their offer, increasing their average orders by 50 percent, and the students got to work. Some were baristas who brewed and poured the coffee into cups. Others handled the preparation with creamers and sugars. Those responsible for quality control ensured the process ran smoothly. One or two students worked the front counter and several handled walk-in customers, while others made door-to-door classroom deliveries.
The Green & Gold Cafe is a micro-enterprise coffee shop for students with autism and cognitive impairments that offers them real-life opportunities to develop job and communication skills. Sheila started the café around six years ago with a former speech therapist and the business grew from there. While it took a hiatus last year due to COVID-19, it kicked off this year stronger than ever.
“They’re so excited to get back to it this year,” Sheila said. “It’s grown. We’ve added different snacks now. We’ve added a whole bunch of different flavors of creamers. The kids have learned how to look for different information on the stickers. It’s been a really great experience for them.”
It also has been a great experience for North senior Kylie Richardson, who helps out with Mrs. Doss’s class as an independent study.
“I’m a student helper in the classroom,” she explained. “I’m here all week long. I’m in the classroom with them first hour to help them out with anything that they need.”
First hour for the students is a career decisions course.
“We do stuff like math, checking accounts,” Kylie said. “Coffee club is to help them get experience and then we do job applications, where they fill out real job applications. We go over what is a good thing at work and what is a bad thing at work. We go over different situations with them and I’m there to help them have a better understanding of why that’s bad or why that’s good.”
Kylie said she signed up as a student helper to “be a better person because you’re helping other people out. You’re understanding how to talk to people in a different way and how to understand people in a different way. It helps with communication skills. It helps them feel better about working.”
In addition to social and communication skills, the students also learn money skills. For example, on Money Mondays, they count the money earned on Wednesday and Friday, look at graphs to determine favorite creamers and top sellers, and analyze the data. They also make coupons to pass out to the teachers.
One enhancement to the program grew from a problem-solving opportunity. To make it easier for students to match coffee orders with its accompanying treat, Sheila worked with innovative technology teacher Jimmy Bennett to create a 3D product. The result is an individual holder with separate compartments for coffee and a snack.
A major benefit of the program, according to Sheila, is when the students get out into the building to make their deliveries, they get to be known by other students and the staff.
“We have so many brand-new teachers this year and we’re slowly getting them to know who we are,” she said. “It makes them feel like a part of the school.”
Spanish teacher Mandy Grattan tried out the service for the first time on Wednesday and said she will definitely be a repeat customer.
“The boys were so sweet,” she said of the delivery team. “It was the best part of my day and it put a big smile on my face.”
Pierce students join forces for good
As part of a school-wide focus on empathy in advisory class, all Pierce Middle School fifth to eighth graders joined forces to donate plastic bags, toiletries, and non-perishable food items for the Motor City Mitten Mission.
“We collected over 650 individual items, not including bags,” said Andrea Doherty, who teaches sixth-grade social studies and language arts. “We have hundreds of bags.”
Those bags came in handy. Andrea is also Pierce’s National Junior Honor Society adviser, and NJHS members and the school’s Green Team partnered up after school last week to make plarn with the bags. Plarn (PLastic + yARN) is what is used to knit or crochet re-purposed plastic shopping bags into sleeping mats.
Alumni Through the Decades
Our 100th anniversary series on GPPSS alumni continues.
Rockim Williamson
Grosse Pointe South High School
Class of 2018
Rockim Williams has been writing music since he was in kindergarten, performing since he was in third grade, and releasing music since the sixth grade. His music has played in over 20 different countries on a variety of streaming platforms, including iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube.
The Detroit Entrepreneur called the 21-year-old R&B and hip hop award-winning artist “the real deal.”
An article in Medium credits him with “keeping real hip hop alive.”
“One thing I’ve realized through every stage and every phase I’ve been through so far in my life, music has always been there,” Rockim said. “Besides my relationship with the Lord, music is the only thing that moves me. It is the thing I want to keep around with me throughout the rest of my life.”
Nurturing this love from a young age was having music as a constant presence in his household. He also attended Marvin L. Winans Academy of Performing Arts Elementary School in Detroit from kindergarten to grade 5, transferring to Pierce Middle School when his family moved to Grosse Pointe Park.
The transition did not go well.
“My sixth-grade year I wasn’t very open to people as I am now,” Rockim explained. “Coming from the Academy, I didn’t want to make the transition at all. I loved my school. I loved my friends at the school. When I transferred to Pierce, it was not my choice. I was very closed off in a lot of ways.”
One teacher — English teacher Jan Brengman, now retired — “kept sticking it out with me,” he said. “There were many times in her class where I was so disobedient, not doing what I was supposed to do. She saw right through that. She kept disciplining me. She was very goofy and I loved that. She made a big impact.”
Rockim added that Mrs. Brengman is still a big part of his life. In fact, she was influential in putting him in touch with a mentor in the music industry, opening up resources and connections he wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Another teacher who impacted him was his math teacher at Grosse Pointe South, Amanda Orban.
“She was a phenomenal teacher,” Rockim said. “She knew how to connect with her students. Math was a subject I succeeded in. I also needed help at times. She always allowed me to come in to her class and work on math. Through that we would have these side conversations and formed that teacher-student relationship.”
Another bond he formed freshman year was with South Principal Moussa Hamka. During a float party in the fall, Mr. Hamka challenged Rockim to a one-on-one basketball game. The story of the game — and its outcome, with Mr. Hamka winning by one point on a lay-up — is one the principal “will never get tired of telling,” according to Rockim.
“It was the most fun game of basketball I have ever played in my life to this day,” he said. “We went back and forth. It almost felt like an NBA game. If we made a shot, everybody went crazy.”
At each float party through the rest of his high school career, Rockim challenged Mr. Hamka to a rematch.
“I am still waiting for my rematch to this day,” he said, adding that Mr. Hamka “is a super genuine guy, super cool. Whenever I needed anything, he always looked out for me whenever there was an opportunity. Throughout the experiences I had, I have nothing but good reviews for him. I love him to death.”
While Rockim received a scholarship to his dream school, Full Sail University in Florida, which specializes in the entertainment industry, he ended up turning down the opportunity to remain closer to home. The youngest of six boys and three girls, Rockim describes himself as “a momma’s boy.”
“My mom is very protective over me and she wanted to keep a close eye on me out of the house,” he said.
Instead of going out of state, he attended Oakland University and has no regrets about the people he met and the connections he made as a result.
In fact, his band competed in the university’s Battle of the Bands and won, earning the opportunity to open for the headliners at the 2019 spring concert. In April that year, Rockim’s band opened for rappers KYLE and Blackbear at the Meadow Brook Amphitheatre on Oakland’s campus.
“The experience of it all was absolutely beautiful,” Rockim recalled. “That was my first concert I’d ever gone to and that itself was great. All throughout my life growing up I’ve said my first concert will be my first concert (performing). I had many opportunities to go to concerts over the years but I always turned them down.”
Rockim’s band, Confidence, has had numerous opportunities to perform since, including on the R&B stage at the Arts, Beats & Eats Festival in Royal Oak on Labor Day weekend. They also performed in Miami after winning the Coast2Coast competition.
Rockim chose the band name because it is an extension of his brand, Confidence Creates.
“I started it back when I was at South,” he said. “Confidence within itself is very important to me. I call it ‘Confidence Creates’ because confidence creates everything — resources, jobs, music. Confidence can literally create anything and I believe anyone who has at least a little bit of self-confidence within themselves can go on and achieve the most incredible things. I believe after each achievement, after each accomplishment, your confidence grows, especially if you don’t let it go to your head. Confidence for me literally saved my life. It has stopped me from doing things. It has helped me do things. It has allowed me to do things and if people choose to judge, it had given me the confidence to not care.”
Rockim hopes to continue to grow his brand and is in the process of creating a clothing line. He also hopes to create a record label.
“Confidence can save lives and impact people and that’s what I’m big on,” he said.
South jazz concert tonight
Bop along with Grosse Pointe South’s jazz band’s Yule Be Boppin’ concert at 7 p.m. tonight, Dec. 10, in South’s auditorium. Tickets for adults are $5; students are free.
North presents holiday concert
Join us on Friday, Dec. 17 and Saturday, Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. at Christ the King Lutheran Church for a holiday concert presented by Grosse Pointe North choirs. The concert features AcaFella, Choraliers, CounterPointe, Norsemen, Pointe Chorale, Treble Choir and student soloists. The choirs are under the direction of Ben Henri, with Bob Foster as accompanist and Ilyssa Brunhild as the student teacher.
Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students and senior citizens, and are sold at the door. Children under 5 are free.
School Pointes is a publication of the Grosse Pointe Public School System. To submit story ideas or Pointes of Pride, email info@gpschools.org.
It’s great to see a program like this helping students build real skills while spreading kindness. You might want to check out CoachersOrg for similar personalized learning experiences that support growth in unique ways. Programs like these make school feel more connected and supportive.