2024 WorthyWorks Award - Joyful Cafe

Robin Wisner

Board Member,

Joyful Cafe

Congratulations to Joyful Cafe on being named the 2024 WorthyWorks Award recipient!

Robin Wisner and Heather Yates had no idea what was brewing when they collaborated to find a solution for what to do when their children aged out of their school’s respective special needs programs.

Wisner’s two sons were in the Norwayne District, and Yates’ daughter was in Wooster City Schools. The two were introduced by Robin Miller of Broehl Law Office after each independently spoke with her about their situations.

The idea that percolated to the top was the creation of The Joyful Cafe, a nonprofit organization that hires people with disabilities to serve coffee and snacks at two locations and soon to be three.

The Joyful Cafe, founded in 2018, operates a shop in HealthPoint that is open to the public, and one inside the Western Reserve Group offices on Benden Drive that is for the employees there.

“It’s humbling; it really is,” Wisner said of being honored with the WorthyWorks Award. “We started this from the perspective of parents with kids with special needs, not as coffee mavens. It’s a passion project for Heather and I, my husband, Barry Romich, and Robin Miller.”

Each location has a manager and a staff made up of people with disabilities. The employees generally work two short shifts a week so as many people as possible can gain work experience.

While the nonprofit emerged from what was seen as a lack of available services for special needs people, “we do not consider ourselves providing services,” Wisner said. “We consider ourselves as an employer.”

“This has been nothing short of life-changing” for the workers, Wisner said. “Having that experience of having a job, getting a paycheck, having some independence, and having expectations of you has been life-changing.”