Community Uplift Partnership

In 2013 CUP was started to break the cycle of poverty by offering mentorship and on the job life skills training in Adams County in Commerce City, Colorado. It began by helping families that needed care, through a food bank, one on one mentorship and life skills classes. In 2018 CUP opened it’s first Coffee House, and focused mainly on students ages 16-24 helping them to “level up” to living wage job or school.

For the last four years CUP has been offering YEP, a 12-week Youth Empowerment Program, where young adults are guided through sessions on leadership training, practical life skills, resume building, faith & financial literacy, mental health awareness, healthy living choices and more. Our YEP curriculum & many community guest speakers focus on “how students can obtain tools to help them launch into adulthood successfully!” These classes help our young adults network and make connections that build social capital, and acquire knowledge that they may not have gotten at home or school.

Young adults are employed and work in a healthy work environment alongside wise mentors, in one of our four social enterprises that is our Beyond The Job Training. The connections that are made with mentors in the day to day, help students overcome hurdles in their lives, by having a caring person in their life at work to problem solve and train. This training goes far beyond the espresso machine. We do teach great customer service, effective communication, teamwork, and commitment to a healthy work environment, but we also identify and nurture strengths such as marketing, inventory control, management, admin skills and how to have a crucial conversation! These skills help at risk young people level up to a new and better opportunity in the work force. In 2023 we helped over 60 kids find living wage jobs, start or return to college, start their own business or make a lateral move, but with tools to be quickly promoted or change their next atmospheres from toxic to healthy!

CUP exists to help young adults overcome hurdles in their lives that affect their futures, communities & families, through connection & education. Our goal is to help as many students as we can, move to a healthy environment and overcome hurdles such as…. addiction, poverty, homelessness, joblessness, lack of education, lack of communication, crime & incarceration, anxiety & depression, faithlessness, fear and the general feeling of being stuck. We know young people are our future and many, due to various reasons such as abuse or Covid, never learned basic life and job skills that are needed for success in life. CUP exists to change this. To give as many young people as possible, the tools needed for success. We do this by partnering with the community and drawing on their generosity, love and wisdom!