13 January 5-11, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents MonthXX–MonthXX, 2014 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER | CONTENTS | UNFAIR PARK | SCHUTZE | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | MOVIES | DISH | MUSIC | CLASSIFIED | BY LAUREN DREWES DANIELS K adee Randle entered Texas’ foster care system when she was 16 and had four different placements be- fore aging out of the system when she turned 18. She never finished high school and, now at 23, has a toddler of her own. Recently her car was towed. She was sitting in her apartment with her young child, with no way to get to work. No backup plan. “I was like, ‘How am I going to get to work and everything?’” Randle has been on her own since leaving foster care. “I don’t have any parents to teach me how to do this or do that or how to budget or anything like that,” Randle says with an almost sweet lilt in her voice. Throughout her teens, she worked at fast-food restaurants. Then, at 19 she was di- rected to a nonprofit program, the We Are One Project, which was created by a local businessman for young people just like her. The mentorship program aimed to fill some of the voids, the missed life lessons — both big and small — and offer help with housing, therapy and budgeting. Several years later, the We Are One Proj- ect has blossomed into a robust opportunity for former foster kids that still offers crucial mentoring as well as career help and a job. And it all happens in a coffee shop, La La Land Kind Cafe. It’s also how Randle got her car back. F rancois Reihani, 27, is sitting in the middle of a La La Land Kind Cafe just off Lower Greenville Avenue — he founded and is CEO of the coffee shop — re- calling how he got to this point. He’s tall but folds up comfortably on a beige couch, talk- ing quickly but at ease. The coffee house has bright yellow and white accents. With the midday sun pouring through the windows, it emanates a pleasant glow. There’s usually a line of customers from the register to the door here: women in Lu- lulemon athleisure wear buying tan drinks topped with white clouds. There are no ob- vious signs the coffee shop is on a mission to help young people who age out of foster care at 18 with no family or place to call home. A meeting started him down a path that led to the cafe and the We Are One Project. In 2017 he’d opened Pōk in the West Village while still a student at SMU. The restaurant served bowls of sushi-like diced raw fish, originally popularized in Hawaii, and it did very well as one the first of its kind in Dallas. But he soon realized that he wasn’t going to be happy with that life for long. The success didn’t make him feel any better. He wanted to be able to look back on his life in his old age and have something besides money to show for it. “So, I wanted to figure it out,” he says. A friend, Erin Jesberger, invited him to a meeting held by the nonprofit CASA, or Court Appointed Special Advocates. The Dallas chapter of CASA, established in 1979, uses volunteers to act as a voice, appointed by judges, that “protects children and re- stores childhoods.” Last year, 1,500 volun- teers served more than 3,000 children in Dallas County. Topics at its monthly meet- ings vary, and the focus for the one Reihani attended was about what happens after fos- ter youth age out of the system on the day they turn 18. “The first kid got up there and started go- ing through his life story,” Reihani says. He talked about being taken away from his par- ents at a young age and going through 15 dif- ferent homes, and how most of the foster parents were just in it for the money. When a home didn’t work out, the young man had to go to foster centers that were no better than the many homes he had lived in. He described a litany of dire situations. “Then at 18, literally on that day, they kick you out of the house,” Reihani says. “And what got me was if you’re out on the street at 18, you’re the easiest target in his- tory for either getting thrown into drug rings or prostitution. The craziest stat I ever heard was that over half of all the | CITY OF ATE | t Dish Kathy Tran Fostering Kindness A Dallas businessman created a mentorship program that helps kids who aged out of foster care. Francois Reihani is the founder of the We Are One Project and La La Land Kind Cafe. >> p14
