A group of older men sits trading jokes and opinions over cups of coffee on a summer morning at the public library.

By paying for that coffee, they are contributing to a program that teaches young people skills that will help them for the rest of their lives.

Hatch Café inside the South Huntsville Public Library sells library patrons sandwiches, cookies, kids’ snacks and, of course, coffee. Café proceeds help sustain Hatch, a Huntsville nonprofit organization that works with adults ages 18-24.

Hatch’s eight-week job training program teaches life skills, culinary and hospitality training and “self-sufficiency — living free from government assistance and earning their own way,” said co-founder Garrett Coyne.

“We try to empower them to lead,” Coyne said. “Our vision is to empower them to lead a self-sufficient life.”

Young people in the Hatch program have “a lot of potential to change their trajectory,” he said. They may have been through the foster care program, became teenage parents, had brushes with the law or even found themselves homeless.All Posts

Hatch pays their workers $1,250 over eight weeks and gives them two meals a day. A former restaurant at Woody Anderson Ford functions as a converted classroom. Plans include a new facility near Lowe Mill.

“We do it five times a year,” Coyne said. “Our goal is to serve 50 to 75 young adults who graduate the program.”

Hatch has a close relationship with the South Huntsville Public Library, where its Hatch Café generates funding for the nonprofit, supplementing donations and grants. (contributed)

When founders announced the Hatch program in April 2021, library leaders asked if they would like to operate a café in the new South Huntsville library then under construction.

With each item sold, “every dollar is part of the nonprofit that runs the program, so it became a great fit,” Coyne said. Proceeds supplement donations and grants.

“When we started Hatch, we knew that our community was growing and there’s a lot of economic possibilities and mobility in the community, but there were young adults that did not have the skill set to participate in our community’s growth.

“We wanted to make sure that some of those young adults have that possibility to move their income up and the library just loves that,” Coyne said.

“The relationship between the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library and Hatch has formed an amazing synergy that has been a remarkable benefit to our patrons at the South Huntsville Public Library,” said library Public Relations Director Jay Hixon.

“Hatch’s mission dovetails well with the other workforce development programs HMCPL has throughout our library system,” Hixon said. “We’re so excited to see the positive effects they are having on the lives of young people.”

Hatch rents space at the library for a “very favorable rate,” Coyne said, and “the library benefits from having a social impact café in their library.”

Everyone loves Starbucks, Coyne said, but patrons of the Hatch Café know that “not only is it a small local operation, but it’s a nonprofit operation.”

As part of the program, Hatch teachers take their students on tours of the library. Many have never gone to a library.

“When they walk into that library, they really don’t realize that the library is what the library is,” he said. “They go, ‘Wow, this is something I can take advantage of. This is part of my Huntsville.’”

This story was previously published by This is Alabama. Want to read more good news about Alabama? Sign up for the This is Alabama newsletter here.