Curt's Cafe to Honor Edzo's Eddie Lakin

Evanston’s Curt’s Cafe will honor Edzo’s owner Eddie Lakin with Curt’s Cafe’s first “Life Changer Award” at it’s Second Annual Gratitude Bash on Saturday, November 1 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Northwestern University’s Alice Millar Chapel.

Lakin is being honored for his commitment to hiring Curt’s “graduates” to work in his popular burger joint and giving them a chance to change their lives. Lakin currently has five Curt’s grads on his payroll.

Several months ago, Curt’s Cafe founder Susan Trieschmann and Edzo’s owner Lakin met for the first time when they and some of their staff members found themselves at side-by-side booths prepping and peddling their respective culinary creations at a fundraiser for the Center for Independent Futures. On November 1, Curt’s Cafe, and Evanston Cafe that provides job and life-skills training to at-risk youth will honor Lakin of mouth-watering burgers, fries and shakes fame, for his strong support of Curt’s at its second annual Gratitude Bash at the Alice Millar Chapel in Evanston.

According to Trieschmann, whose two-year-old Evanston cafe provides job and life-skills training to at-risk youth, “Eddie stood next to us all day watching our students make food and interact with customers. Last December, we approached him at Edzo’s about hiring some of our students and he and his manager were willing to give our guys a shot. Edzo’s had just started staying open for dinner, and they hired our Justin, Cliff, and Tevin at the same time.” The three Curt’s graduates are still there along with two more Curt’s hires. And that’s a win-win for Curt’s and for Edzo’s.

Visit Curt’s Cafe on any given day between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. and you will find it packed with patrons—some communing with a computer and a cappuccino, others chatting and knitting on the comfy couches, and still others eyeing the displayed artwork while ordering Curt’s famous “green drink,” or a muffin, salad, soup or sandwich. People come for the food and friendly atmosphere.

But their visits mean a lot more to the 15- to 22-year-olds who cook, clean, bake, serve and staff the cafe. That’s because Curt’s, which Treischmann opened on Central Street in 2012, is first and foremost a job-training program where youth who have been incarcerated or who are at risk of incarceration gain restaurant and life skills—along with huge doses of love and support from Treischmann and a large number of intrepid and committed volunteers. Curt’s enrolls four or five students at a time who train for about three months, and are then helped with job placement and the transition into full-time employment. To date, Curt’s Cafe has “graduated” 32 young people, and has a waiting list far longer than the Cafe’s capacity.

Turns out that Trieschmann was one step ahead of President Barack Obama, who just a few months ago launched My Brother’s Keeper, a $200 million commitment from nine foundations to bolster the lives of young men and boys of color. The funding is part of a larger initiative from the White House to bring private business, nonprofits and local governments together to intervene in key moments in the lives of young black and Hispanic men to ensure they stay in school and eventually train for and get good jobs. As the My Brother’s Keeper fact sheet explains: boys and young men of color—regardless of where they come from—are disproportionately at risk from their youngest years through college and the early stages of their professional lives.

--By the time they’ve hit fourth grade, 86 percent of African-American boys and 82 percent of Hispanic boys are reading below proficiency levels.

--African American and Hispanic young men are more than six times as likely to be victims of murder than their white peers—and account for almost half of the country’s murder victims each year.

Trieschmann, who recently won $10,000 as a L’Oreal Woman of Worth (one of 10 finalists out of 35,000 entrants) and has become a local celebrity of sorts, has worked in food service she she was 13 years old. She was the Director of Catering at the legendary Pump Room and then a partner in Food for Thought Enterprise for 25 years. She is also an original member of Restorative Justice Evanston, a non-profit organization that works with youth and community on peaceful dialogue around harm cause and conflicts. Through her work in restorative justice, Trieschmann heard over and over from young people that they would be far less likely to be involved in criminal activity if they had a job, and this ignited her passion to use her food service expertise toward a higher purpose.

Formerly incarcerated or proven-risk youth have limited options and few resources available to them. Even a short period of confinement dramatically affects a young person’s ability to thrive outside incarceration. They have little hope of securing employment, even for entry-level positions. Many end up living on the streets and return to destructive habits. They cycle through the courts and 82 percent of those released are sent back through the system within a year. As Trieschmann explains, “We all pay the price for such recidivism. It costs more to send a teenager to a correctional institution that it does to put him through Northwestern University.”

For Lakin’s part, he is honored by Curt’s request, but says, “I’m the one who is grateful for the work that Curt’s does to help these young men find and keep jobs, which benefits business owners like myself. One of the things I like about hiring Curt’s guys is that they really value the job, which isn’t the case with all employees.”

For tickets to the Gratitude Bash, or to donate to Curt’s, go to http://bit.ly/1tXwFWB