Claudia Shivers, a High Point, NC, resident, is building her coffee-roasting business after graduating from the "Inmates to Entrepreneurs" program, the longest running program of its kind in the nation.
The eight-week program has helped her build her company, Queen Coffee Bean. Shivers now has a website, a space to roast her coffee beans, and pop-up shops to introduce her coffee to people in an effort to support small farmers and grow community.
Shivers says the program provided a support group and allowed her to find confidence in her business and the future she could build:
“You understand that other people feel the same way that you do and that everybody’s not judging you, and usually you’re judging yourself more harshly than anybody else. And so, it took away the barriers of me being willing to ask for help."
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