DIRT Coffee | 5767 S. Rapp St.
Local coffee shops have long been vital to downtowns and main streets, often serving as central locations for people to gather, connect, and build a sense of community. DIRT Coffee does all of that and so much more. We’re grateful for the opportunity to learn more about DIRT’s mission from Owner, Catharina Hughey.
Who are you?
DIRT is more than coffee — we’re a non-profit social enterprise dedicated to creating meaningful inclusive employment for neurodivergent individuals in our community through job training at coffee shops. DIRT actually stands for Divergent Inclusive Representation Transforms.
Neurodivergent is a term that accompanies individuals with autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, ADHD, OCD and traumatic brain injury, and our mission to employ individuals with these conditions provides employment and on-the-job training for about 20 staff members (between 2 locations) and a rotating class on interns. We pride ourselves on providing a great environment where interns to feel welcomed and supported as they explore their vocations
In addition to the individuals we serve, we have an Inclusive Workforce Employer Program that has reached 300+ employers and employees at conferences, consultation services, and individualized training.”
The coffee shop and nonprofit are on a mission to train, but also prove, that people who are neurodivergent belong in an integrated workforce.
What makes DIRT unique?
We are local and every single dollar that goes into our operations goes toward empowering neurodivergent folks, building communities where everyone is valued. Our revenue goes straight back into our programming.
Why Downtown Littleton?
Most people don’t know this, but we actually started with a coffee truck in 2013. We then crowd-funded to raise money for the renovations for the Rapp Street location in Downtown Littleton, which opened in 2018. And exactly 10 years after we started with the coffee truck, we opened our second location in 2023 in the Park Hill community in East Denver.
When looking for our forever home, we knew we wanted to stay in Littleton because of the support of the customers, the City of Littleton, and other local businesses. The workforce development opportunities that we’ve been able to offer are because of the support of our donors and the local community.
Downtown Littleton is a special place where the community is very involved. We have the best customers who have provided so much support over the years. We try to support as many local businesses as well by ensuring everything in our shops is local — from the products we use to tapping a local architect, we keep it local and give back to our community.
What’s Next?
We’re excited to announce that we’re opening another location in Downtown Littleton on the corner of Alamo and Nevada. This location will feature a cafe and a workforce development center, which will be the first of its kind — a public workforce development center tailored for neurodivergent and disabled individuals in Colorado.
In addition to the excitement about the cafe and workforce development center, we’re excited to make this building, which has been designated as historical, accessible to the public again. We’ll be rolling out a formal campaign about this new location soon.
