Coffee, pastries and hope on menu at new library cafe

Ronald Wimes was homeless and battling drug addiction.

"That's like a circle that goes down and down and down," he recalled yesterday. "It's everything that comes with homelessness -- the rain, the cold, eating in soup lines and just despair, loneliness and a lot of pain.

"I needed help. I had nothing. I had a desire, and that was the biggest piece to wanting change."

He found Project HOME, a Philadelphia nonprofit agency that deals with poverty and homelessness.

Yesterday Wimes, 47, started his first day of work as lead host at the HOME Page Cafe, a wireless-Internet cafe in the lobby of the Central Library on the Ben Franklin Parkway.

The cafe, a collaboration among the Free Library of Philadelphia, Project HOME and Bank of America, officially opened yesterday morning with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and speeches from project organizers and cafe employees.

The cafe will employ 10 formerly homeless Philadelphians and five teens from Project HOME's Harold A. Honickman Youth Entrepreneur Program. Employees will earn $8.75 an hour.

"Public libraries and homelessness are often in conflict," said Sister Mary Scullion, executive director and co-founder of Project HOME. "Those that have no home often take refuge here and sometimes people are afraid. Philadelphia has found a way to take a step forward in providing a solution to this very real tension."

Mayor Nutter and project participants cut the ribbon with a giant pair of scissors.

"This is an incredible example of the creativity we should be replicating all over the city," Nutter said.

The spacious cafe was financed partly by a $200,000 grant from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation.

The cafe serves Starbucks coffee, baked goods from Metropolitan Bakery, and sandwiches and salads from Project HOME's Back Home Cafe and Catering, situated at the group's main office at 15th Street and Fairmount Avenue.

Wimes began his recovery a year ago by moving into Project HOME's St. Elizabeth's Recovery and Resistance community at 1850 N. Croskey St., in North Philadelphia.

"I would never imagine I'd be standing here, an employee of the HOME Page Cafe and lead host," Wimes told the crowd. "I would never imagine that."

Wimes said that his position as lead host, which is full-time with benefits, is similar to a supervisor who oversees employees and manages the cafe's inventory -- areas of responsibility he never could have contemplated before.

"First of all, I wasn't lead nothing," Wimes said. "Nobody wanted to be around me, so it's a big jump in the experience of life. I've never been a supervisor or anything like that."

Another host, Jeanne Brophy, 33, also was once homeless, but has lived in Project HOME's Kairos House at Broad and Jefferson streets for 15 months.

Brophy said that she hopes to increase her hours at the cafe so that she can continue her education; she'd like to study computer technology.

"Working with these guys is awesome," Brophy said, while rushing to refill coffee carafes. "It's just incredible."

The cafe also will employ a full-time manager and a full-time "job coach." These employees will hold daily training sessions on topics including punctuality, appearance and job performance.

For Wimes, customer service is a priority.

"It's about reaching out to people, man," he said. "I've got a new sense of self-respect and respect for people. The way I was helped and served go into my customer service."

Once the cafe is self-supporting, Project HOME hopes to create a profit-sharing program for employees.

The partnership is one of many working programs that Project HOME has in the city.

Among others are: providing restroom attendants at the Central Library as well as the Back Home Cafe & Catering and Our Daily Threads Thrift Store, at Project HOME's main office.

"We celebrate today another step forward, actualizing our commitment to end homelessness in our city," Scullion said.

"By taking action, we can end this very human crisis."