Serving Cup

The Serving Cup

The Serving Cup empowers adults with special needs, their friends, families, and caregivers to claim opportunities which enhance their lives in the community.

Goal: 1000 and 1
To serve 1000 people per month at our Coffeehouses and have one housing project in the works at all times.

The Serving Cup aims to accomplish this through the development of Coffeehouse evenings throughout Wake County, NC and beyond. The purpose of Coffeehouse evenings is to provide inclusive settings for all, including developmentally disabled adults, to meet and mingle and have fun with the entire community. The Coffeehouse at Good Shepherd (Lutheran Church) has been meeting monthly since 1997 and routinely serves over 200 people each month. The success of this Coffeehouse led its founders to realize there was a great unmet need among the developmentally disabled participants in the Coffeehouse for some essentials such as social interaction, housing, employment opportunities, and transportation.

The Serving Cup, in partnership with Lutheran Family Services of the Carolinas and the Arc of NC, has created Green Level Homes in Cary, NC. Green Level Homes provides independent living apartments for adults with developmental disabilities. The Coffeehouse at Good Shepherd will help form Support Teams for each resident to help the new residents transition into independent living.

The Serving Cup's ongoing projects do not provide solutions to every question posed to friends of the Coffeehouse. In all of our efforts to do so, The Serving Cup aims also to erase the lines dividing people of differing abilities.

As we are increasingly sensitive to differences between cultures, we should learn to understand differences within our own culture.