Saturday, May 20th, was the Grand Opening of The Coffee Oasis Tacoma Café and Youth Center. The morning–and space–was filled with heartwarming support from the community. The ribbon cutting ceremony was opened with a prayer by Pastor John Stiffler from Anchor Church. Mayor Victoria Woodards, Puyallup Tribal Elder Frank Wright, and The Coffee Oasis Executive Director, Daniel Frederick shared inspiring remarks about the significance of The Coffee Oasis opening in Tacoma. One of those attending the event on Saturday, May 20th, summarized the time well saying, “My heart is full.”

Thank you to all those who made this possible and joined us in celebrating this momentous occasion! 

During the ribbon cutting ceremony, The Coffee Oasis Executive Director, Daniel Frederick shared:

We hear the word hope a lot these days. Hope is a good word. 

Hope looks to the future. Hope is the anticipation that something good will happen. Some of us (myself included) fail to fully understand the word hope because we already have what  we need to thrive. I don’t hope for a home or a job or food because I already have a home, a job, and more than enough food. 

But not everyone has a home, a job, and food, and some have lost hope. Some have been too hurt, too traumatized, experienced too much loss to dare to hope. 

In 2017, there was a small and mighty group of people in Tacoma, many of them powerful mothers, who learned that there were youth, youth under the age of 18, who had nowhere to sleep at night.  Nowhere to go and no people to call family.  

Instead of letting the hopeless situation persist, they embraced the hurt—the hurt of hope—and believed that youth in Tacoma could have a safe place to sleep at night, a place to call home. 

The Coffee Oasis is in Tacoma because of this hope. Now there is a place in Tacoma for youth to call home and find family. Today, Tacoma, your faith has become sight!  

…And this is not the end. This is only the beginning. 

We have been a safe shelter for over 300 youth. We have reached thousands of youth through outreach on the streets and in schools.  

After the completion of this project we are immediately turning our attention to the back building that now sits burned behind us. If you feel like you missed out on helping with building this shelter, youth center, and café, don’t worry! There is still more work to be done and many many more youth to reach. We are excited for new partnerships like Master Builders and churches that represent thousands of people throughout Pierce County who are passionate about Restoring Community. For the journey and the friendship, the hard times and those that carried the hurt of hope, we thank God and are excited for what is to come. Thank you.