Gov. Bill Lee recently added Tennessee to the list of states whose leaders have provided written consent affirming they’ll accept new refugee resettlements. As a citizen and business owner in this state, I could not be happier.
When my husband and I were looking for a place to start a coffee roasting company, we eventually settled on Chattanooga, where we founded our business, Mad Priest Coffee Roasters, in 2015. With a little help from Kickstarter and a lot of sweat equity, we watched our business grow. We now have three flourishing establishments: a coffee roastery, espresso bar and an all-day cafe and bar.
Chattanooga, as it turns out, was an excellent choice: Our business has taken off, and we’re fortunate enough to employ more than two dozen wonderful workers who have helped make our early success possible. That includes our very first hire, a refugee who had arrived in the United States just weeks earlier from war torn East Africa, with very little English but an eagerness to work and a hunger to learn.
In fact, hiring refugees has been central to The Mad Priest’s mission and central to the success of our business. “Champion the displaced” is a central part of our mission statement.
We wanted to build a company that not only sells a good product but one that does good in the world. It’s our way to give back not just to refugees but to our adopted city as well, empowering resettled refugees – alongside native-born workers – through employment and on-the-job training, while creating immersive, cultural experiences in our retail locations that everyone can learn from and enjoy.