All right, welcome to the AdaptX podcast where we have conversations with individuals
who are building accessible businesses or products advocating for inclusion or excelling
in adaptive sports.
Our intention is to speak on behalf of those with disabilities, but amplify their voice
and help you create more inclusive environments.
Today we are joined by Mackenzie Edinger.
In March of 2022, at only 23 years old, Mackenzie opened her business, Inclusion Coffee Company.
She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater with a degree in early childhood and special
education and through her involvement with organizations like Best Buddies, formulated
the idea for a business that would emphasize hiring a diverse workforce, providing meaningful
employment to individuals with disabilities.
Hopefully that did it justice, but Mackenzie, thanks for joining me today to talk about
your business.
Of course.
So I heard about your company.
It might have been through LinkedIn, might have been through social media in some regard
and reached out last week.
We hadn't interacted prior to that.
But your story is in many ways similar to mine.
I opened my first business, an inclusive fitness center when I was 23 after graduating with
a degree in special education, but deciding that I wanted to pursue something outside
of the classroom.
So I guess the first thing that kind of came to mind was at what point did you decide that
you didn't want to necessarily teach that you want to do something else?
I think it was actually through my master's program.
So after I got a degree in special ed, I definitely still wanted to do something with that diverse
population.
So I went and got my master's in administration, thinking maybe one day I'll be a special ed
director or something along those lines.
And while doing that, I actually saw a coffee shop on the East Coast that does very similar
things to what we do.
And just thinking about that, I was like, there's nothing in our community that has
anything that is doing something like that.
So really it was a quick process.
I was like, we can start something up like this.
There's coffee shops in the area.
There's a lot of people I know from high school that would love to work there.
So it was kind of just a quick, let's pull this together and see what we can do.
What was your first exposure to inclusion or disabilities?
It would have been in high school.
I joined a club called best buddies where you kind of partner with an individual with
a disability.
Take them shopping to the mall, kind of whatever they want to do and just indulge them in everyday
life.
Yeah.
And so are you still involved or acquainted with your best buddy?
We do a lot of, we get a lot of best buddies programs from the area.
So from local schools, they'll come in and have class there just for a daily field trip.
So I guess I'm not really part of it, but we do see a lot of programs come in.
For me, I think there was at some point during my student teaching where like the rigidity
of special education deterred is a little too strong of a word, but it wasn't as appealing
to me as maybe having some more flexibility to like build relationships with the individuals
and kind of get them in an environment outside of this like rigid and flexible ABA type of
environment.
So that's where I like want to combine my interest in fitness and my interest in inclusion
to like come up with my gym.
And there wasn't really a model to follow.
So I was curious if like you mentioned the restaurant out on the East coast, were you
able to learn anything from them or did they just kind of give you the foresight that it
might be possible?
Yeah.
So I didn't visit them before I opened.
I kind of just saw it online, did a little bit of research.
They actually do, there's a little bit differently.
So there's one manager and then everyone else that is working has a disability.
So there, a lot of their stuff is very easy to navigate.
A lot of push buttons, a lot of just easier equipment where we have the equipment that's
at just any ordinary coffee shop and they're learning how to use that.
So they're building their skillset, learning how to steam milk, learning how to pour the
espresso, learning how to take orders and write on cups.
So we kind of took it one step further.
We have a ton of food.
They learn how to make food.
So just one step further than they did, theirs was kind of like the stepping stone of how
do we start and then what can we build off of that?
You always think it was going to be a coffee shop when you had like your vision of creating
an inclusive business?
I think I only went that route because I saw other places doing coffee shops.
I don't drink coffee.
I don't like coffee.
I don't know.
So I think it was just, they did a coffee shop.
They made it work, kind of why switch it.
But there's a lot of, a ton of other businesses that you could totally open doing the same
thing.
I mean, even you doing it, having a gym, a lot of our employees go to a gym around here
too that I don't know if it's like based on, or like their trainers only focus on that
or there's just a few of them that go there and they use the same trainer.
I'm not really sure.
But I do know that a lot of them go to the same place.
I met someone last week.
I was giving a presentation to a nonprofit and there was a student from university of
Wisconsin there for the event.
And she said that they have a adaptive fitness minor at the university, which was the first
time I had heard of that.
So that's pretty cool.
She said she was minoring in that.
So we connected and talked about like kind of how I opened my gym and stuff like that.
But I think for me, it was a lot of like learning on the fly.
Did you come from any restaurant experience or?
Yeah, I worked in restaurants.
I had no business background.
I didn't take any business classes.
Nothing like that.
So a lot of it was kind of like you said on the fly, a lot of Google, a lot of using people
that you know that either own businesses or have worked in the business industry, kind
of where we are.
So yeah, a lot of it was learning on the fly for sure.
For me, sometimes it felt like almost an advantage because I was so fixated on being concerned
about not knowing what I was doing that I dedicated so much time, I guess, to learning.
So I wonder if there is some degree of like where being naive is beneficial because you're
like dedicated to figuring out a solution instead of approaching it through a lens of
thinking that you already have all the answers.
Right.
So you're just reading a textbook.
I mean, I always say that you don't learn everything that you need to know in school.
So reading a textbook doesn't always help.
So just kind of learning it as you go.
And I mean, there's going to be mistakes, but I think it's better that way.
Are there a lot of coffee shops and kind of like competitors in your area?
I always say we don't really have competitors because no one really does the same thing
that we do in our area.
There's a few in Wisconsin that do have similar missions to us.
Nothing super close.
I mean, everything's like over an hour away.
But there's quite a few coffee shops in our area.
Yeah.
But I always say like if people want to go to Starbucks, they're going to go to Starbucks.
If they want to come to inclusion, they're going to come to inclusion.
Can you like separate the mission?
Is there like, can you think of a way that you've differentiated yourself beyond the
unique aspect of employing people with disabilities?
Do you have any other like competitive advantage or do you think people support it because of
that mission?
I think we have more food than a lot of our ones in the area.
I mean, we do full breakfast and lunch.
We have take and make pizzas, which no one else has.
But I think just our food, our food menu is far exceeds anyone else.
That's anywhere close to us.
What have what's been the process of like hiring someone with a disability for you?
Do you guys have a formal interview process or do you partner with local organizations?
We do an interview.
It's not anything formal or long or in depth.
It's kind of with the individual than the parent.
It's just kind of asking like, have you had a job?
What do you like?
What have you done at that job?
Kind of seeing like their skills, kind of what they think they're really good at and
what they might need help on if they need any additional support.
But we don't have I mean, it kind of just depends.
We have so many different and unique individuals that we kind of make their day to day like
special to them.
So we make make sure that they're doing what they want to do when they're there and not
putting them too far out of their comfort zone, but still making them try try new things.
Can you identify some of the like relative strengths that your employees with disabilities
have that maybe their non disabled peers don't or where you think they kind of yeah, the
advantages?
I think a lot of like memorization, a lot of our staff with disabilities really like
focusing on the people that they see every day, get excited when they come in.
They think it's funny when they can like memorize their order and then they'll say it back to
them because they usually get the same thing.
And just their friendliness.
I mean, we all have bad days, but I swear they're always happy and they want they want
to be there.
They're proud to be there.
So I think that's something to that just makes my day probably your day to just happier and
exciting.
Yeah, I can envision that they probably are more committed than many people that are working
a job like a coffee shop.
Like they probably value that role more than some people would.
Yeah, I always say like they're super proud when they walk in the door.
A lot of our parents are the ones that get them there.
So we can't really say like they get the self there on time, but it is I mean, they still
need to get themselves up and ready and to the door and get in the car.
So it's still still on them to be ready for work on time and get there on time.
If you don't mind me asking, how is the business structured?
Is it a like a for profit entity or is it a nonprofit?
We are for profit.
Yeah, that's I like that a lot because it's actually one of the things that like I've
written about in the past is how a lot of organizations that support people with disabilities
are always nonprofits, so people just assume that it's like a lesser service or they just
assume that all individuals with disabilities have to get this like charity type of mindset
dedicated.
So it's cool to see when businesses are for profits and how they're demonstrating why
inclusion is a beneficial aspect of their business and not just like an aspect of good
will.
So that's really great to see.
Are there and it's something that I'm not too familiar with, but I know a lot of young
adults with disabilities, there's specific like social security like thresholds for how
much they can work and still receive their benefits.
Is that something that you guys have kind of run into like people are only able to work
a certain number of hours?
Yeah, we're actually running into that right now.
I mean, a lot of our staff doesn't work a ton of hours.
It's usually like five to 10 a week maybe.
But some have second jobs.
And so they, I mean, I don't really deal with that.
I say that's kind of like, I mean, I don't see any of their benefits or their social
security that they already have.
So that's kind of on the parent, but I mean, we pay them what we pay them, which is actually
above minimum wage in our state.
Everyone starts at that.
And then it is a lot when it comes to social security and benefits.
I mean, they're getting less money from the government because they are making more money,
which I don't understand the whole thing.
I think it's kind of a backwards process.
And they get tips.
So then that's also reflected on what they make.
And it just kind of messes everything up.
And I don't know, I think it just kind of backwards.
Yeah, there is some, like I mentioned, I'm not too well versed in all the intricacies
of it, but I know there is some legislation that's being pushed to kind of raise that
because it like disincentivizes people with disabilities from working.
So it's like you said, a little backwards in that regard.
But there's also not a lot of opportunities.
There's not many people doing what you're doing.
So there is that necessity for people with disabilities to be supported with that supplementary
income.
But it would be great to get to the point where more businesses are like yours.
Yeah.
And some of like the parent, I mean, it depends on the family too.
The individual I'm thinking of has two jobs.
Parents are both still working.
Another employee that I have, his parents are retired.
So he can make as much money as he likes.
Another employee, his dad is also disabled.
So he's on his dad's disability.
So he could also make as much money.
So it's kind of just how your family is too.
And if your parents are older, if they're younger, and if they're still working, it
just, it all just is so individualized.
What are you hoping that the next few years looks like for the business or in general?
We're hoping to have another one.
We're looking, we've been talking to someone in our state actually to franchise.
So that's kind of our first go at it.
We definitely want to spread inclusion and spread the mission and kind of get the message
out there more than it is.
So having more inclusions, more businesses that run with individuals with disabilities,
the better.
Yeah.
Do you think it's a pretty repeatable model?
Because that's one of the, like, we were kind of at a similar juxtaposition with my gym
where like we would love to have another location because we've identified that there's not
a lot of gyms dedicated for people with disabilities to be included amongst their mainstream peers.
But like taking that leap to opening a second location and all the uncertainties that come
with it if you're not able to like be on site all the time, finding the right people to
run it, like a coffee shop is definitely a little different because there's probably
more clear systems in terms of what equipment to buy and what process to follow.
But I guess what would be your biggest concerns with opening a second location?
I think we started out by saying I was going to open a second one and then we were going
to franchise off the second one.
And I kind of backtracked that and I was like, well, why don't we just help someone else
open one that's technically a franchise that I really don't need to, I mean, I can't put
myself and you can't put yourself in two places at once.
So kind of letting someone else run it off your model I think would be easier just in
like the early stages.
Obviously they would be our first one.
So I would help them more and definitely make an effort to make it up there.
I mean, it's not close to the area, but just make it up there a few times a month to help
and see what's going on, make sure everything's kind of, I guess, up to your standards and
what you kind of started.
So yeah, absolutely.
I think that's where like you probably care so much about your business.
I care so much about mine and we're concerned about the quality that it's going to be delivered
with.
So for me, that's one of the biggest hurdles to get over is just, I guess, letting go of
some of that responsibility and giving it to someone else.
Yeah, which is hard.
Yeah, absolutely.
What do you think it's a question that we ask most of the guests and sometimes it's
related to fitness, but maybe we can make it more geared towards like business.
What do you think employers could do to be more inclusive or what do you think businesses
could do to be more inclusive?
I don't necessarily think that businesses say, we don't hire people with disabilities.
I don't think that's ever like a clear rule or whatever you want to call it, but I think
it's just important to have, I don't know, diverse abilities in your workplace.
They teach you things just like you can teach them.
I mean, they come in with things that I've never heard of before and it's accurate and
it's, I don't know, I just feel like kind of going out of that comfort zone and letting
people that you wouldn't think could do the job.
I don't know.
Just like giving them a chance and letting them kind of show you what skills they do
have.
Yeah, I think like to you and I, it seems obvious, but if people haven't had that prior
exposure to it, I think sometimes the fear of being alone.
They might be scared.
Yeah.
So that's where it's like, I think it's important to have businesses like yours demonstrating
the value of it and the delivery of it.
So hopefully more companies like yours.
Have you seen maybe in different industries, other people that kind of employ a lot of
clients with disabilities or not?
When we first opened, I always said like, they're not just going to be washing tables
and cleaning the bathrooms and doing all that.
Cause that's what you do see.
I mean, you see them at restaurants, bussing tables, you see them begging groceries, which
is great.
I mean, some of them really do like that.
I mean, we have an employee that loves begging groceries at Piggly Wiggly.
Like that's his favorite thing to do outside of inclusion.
But I just think that there's so much more that they can learn and they're kind of like
stuck in that I feel comfortable here.
So I'm going to stay doing this.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I just, I mean, yeah, I see them at pick and save.
I see them at restaurants.
I mean, I would say that's probably it.
Yeah, finding ways, I guess, to leverage their strengths.
I think again, maybe it's just an aspect of not being exposed to people with disabilities.
You just assume that every characteristic or every skill that they possess is a deficit.
Whereas as you've experienced and as I've experienced, they do have relative strengths
in some areas that make them great at certain roles.
And it's just making sure that you place them in those roles.
Exactly.
Well, Mackenzie, it was good to hear about the business.
We look forward to seeing if you get the second location up and running.
If people want to find you on Instagram online, is there a handle that you guys use?
Yeah.
Facebook, we have a page, Inclusion Coffee Company.
Instagram is the same, Inclusion Coffee Company.
And then our website is inclusioncoffeecompany.com.
So you can see all our menus and our merch and everything online and check us out.
Awesome.
And maybe someone who listens will be interested in maybe opening a franchise outside of us
so you can go nationwide.
So all right, Mackenzie, thanks again for joining me.
Yeah, thank you.
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