Sonoma State University alumni Luke Fleming (’22) and Will Carlson (’18) were recently featured in a CBS News Bay Area broadcast titled “New Sonoma County Coffee Shop Seeks to Uplift Foster Youth.” The segment highlights the inspiring journey of the two friends, who met as teenagers in a transitional foster home. Both found their first jobs as baristas in a coffee shop to be life-changing.
“The ability to have a job kind of reset everything, where it wasn’t just that we were troubled youth or foster youth. All of a sudden, we had jobs, cars, and people who believed in us,” Carlson shared in the broadcast.
Now clinical social workers, Carlson and Fleming have channeled their passion for coffee into creating Shane’s Coffee, a new coffee shop designed to offer employment opportunities to individuals with disabilities, mental health challenges, and those coming out of the foster care system.
The duo’s coffee venture was also featured in an October 22, 2024, story by The Press Democrat. According to their Shane’s Coffee Facebook page, the coffee shop is set to open in August 2025.
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