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Mayor Lehman helps officially open Higher Grounds Coffee House

Coffee and a means to compassionately meet benevolent needs in the community
HigherGroundsRibbonCut
From left are Pastor Kevin Mast of Hope City Church, Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman and Dr. Tim Henshaw, chairman of the board of directors of Hope City Church. Photo provided

NEWS RELEASE
HOPE BARRIE
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Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman helped cut the ribbon and officially open Higher Grounds Coffee House – Social Enterprise Café 69A Dunlop Street West Barrie, Ontario on Friday, April 6 at 9 a.m.

Higher Grounds Coffee House is Barrie’s first and only Social Enterprise Café and Eatery with the mission to help people reach new heights in their lives, while giving back to the community.

Higher Grounds is where your Coffee Fuels Compassion. Supported by the programming and the wrap-around community-centric, faith-based approach of The Hope Centre, Higher Grounds helps individuals by providing a graduated mentorship programme that is specific to each participant.

This programme, called Stepping Stones to Higher Grounds, contains four streams including Entry Level, Mentorship, Leadership Development, and Community Re-integration (post-prison), and is customized to the needs of each individual.

While Higher Grounds provides the working environment for job skills and “soft skills” training, The Hope Centre (next door at 34 Mary Street) provides each participant with a mentor and a customized programme which may include counseling, psychotherapy, addiction recovery, lifeskills training (such as budgeting, social skills, etc.), goal-setting, and prison after-care, along with other faith-based, in-community supports.

Higher Grounds is one component in a successful multi-faceted approach to helping people move forward in all areas of life including physical, spiritual, mental and emotional aspects of life, through community relationships.

As a ministry of Hope City Church Barrie, a registered non-profit charity, revenues from Higher Grounds Coffee House support the fixed and variable business costs of the café itself, the programme needs of the participants including benevolent needs, and the general fund of the charity which helps to maintain all of its programmes including meeting benevolent needs in the community.

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