What is a single mom of five thinking opening up a bistro? Especially a bistro to help train women who are just coming out of situations so difficult many of us can not imagine? Single moms with no family or support, abused women just learning to live beyond the traps they were chained by, how and why do this? It is very simply what I am meant to do. It sounds simple, naïve and ridiculous maybe. I know all this. I also know that nothing worthwhile comes without effort and sacrifice but that when we follow the path set before us the joys far outweigh the troubles.

But why me, my family, my kids?

Because I was one of these women. Lost and lonely, I felt like an outcast in society, a stranger in my own skin. Despite myself, the view I had adopted of myself I was loved. I was loved by God, and many, many friends. I was not meant to barely survive. I was meant to feel joy, and love, to be surrounded by deep friendships. I was meant to laugh, to love, and ultimately to give back. You see I know that the great commission, the job set before me is to love people, to feed them, warm their hearts, give them a place to belong. These women are not all surrounded by the friends I have, many have been isolated and can not even imagine a life beyond just daily survival, a life filled with laughter and joy.

The goal of the heart and soul café is not only to serve great food but to provide women a means by which to step back into life, to form friendships, to move forward into new lives by having valuable training in the workplace, a ways by which to earn a living and a family to belong to. Love and good food--it is the heart and soul of who we are and what we do.