PEABODY — A Peabody cafe that offers food and customer service training for people with disabilities and autism is now closed for several weeks after a fire that broke out two stories above the business sent water cascading into the cafe, causing big damage
Breaking Grounds is only beginning to assess the damage to the business, but the impact on its employees and interns from the Project Perk program has been devastating.
“We really started to see some skills developed by the group that was in here. They’re in a grieving process right now, so they’ve lost their community activity, they’ve lost their community relationships, they’ve lost their sense of pride,” said Tim Brown with Northeast Arc, which runs the cafe and program.
While the company assesses damage to supplies, paper products and beverage-making machines that have yet to be tested without power, chief operating officer Knicki Foss said it’s the employees they serve who more are affected.
“Everybody likes structure in their life, and once you take that away from that part, it’s really important for our individuals to have support here,” Foss said.
Insurance will cover some water damage to floors and walls, but won’t cover salaries and some of the equipment that will be expensive and take time to replace. And not the community that is fostered here every day.
“I don’t want to be anywhere else but here,” Foss said. “I miss it every day.”
At Breaking Grounds they say they change lives one cup at a time. But now they can only take it one day at a time.
WBZ-TV featured the cafe again December 2017.
For more information, visit their web site.
Beth Germano
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