Three years ago, Hope Served began with a vision of providing opportunities for people with disabilities. The organization is growing and thriving, meeting goals and connecting with the community.

There are three prongs to the Hope Served mission: housing, vocation and community, said executive director Steve Schwartz.

"Long term, we want to be helping families plan for housing needs," he shared. "We want to help families consider creative options beyond a group home."

While the housing goal is still a few years off from fruition, Hope Served is meeting its mission of creating community. The organization is in the process of buying the building where it operates at the former Manheim Mennonite Church, 201 W. High St.

"We want the focus of this building to be a community hub, with opportunities for creating jobs for folks with disabilities, paid employment opportunities and a place where people can develop their skills and uncover their gifts," Schwartz said.

At the community hub, Hope Served plans to open an eatery that will serve the public and provide a teaching kitchen to help people with disabilities learn job skills.

"It will be a year-round teaching kitchen, focusing on customer service, basic cooking and kitchen skills, how to work on a team, how to be a good employee and so on," Schwartz shared. "People will graduate from the program and be able to get jobs in the community."

The restaurant and teaching kitchen will operate with the help of community partners, and plans are underway for construction to begin by late summer, with a tentative 2025 opening date.

Hope Served also operates a Discovery Center at its hub, which Schwartz describes as an "incubator for microenterprises." These are small business ideas that help teach job skills and eventually create jobs for participants, focused on four areas: culinary/healthy living, arts/handiwork, mechanical/technical and agricultural/horticultural. The first microenterprise is Hope Served's own branded coffee, Hope in a Cup, which the organization roasts and sells at events in town, including Manheim's 1st Thursdays.

For the arts/handicraft sector, Hope Served has been offering card-making workshops for several months. Led by Janice Garber, the workshops invite people to create greeting cards to then sell to the public.

Hope Served is in the process of recruiting volunteers to run microenterprises focused on the other two areas, mechanical/technical and agricultural/horticultural.

"We're looking for low-investment ideas," Schwartz said. "We want these programs to be a place for people to try something new, to get out of the house and socialize. Maybe you'll find an interest you didn't know you would enjoy."

Ultimately, the goal of the microenterprises is to get people into the workforce who might traditionally be marginalized. "One of our core values is co-creation," Schwartz said. "We want people to co-create their future. We want people to have a say in what they do. A lot of times, people with disabilities don't have a lot of choice in their lives."

Card-making classes and other programs operated through Hope Served are open to everyone, not just people with disabilities.

"We want to normalize folks with disabilities," Schwartz said. "We want this to be a community hub, a place where people really belong."

Schwartz noted that he's looking for additional card-making instructors as well as other community partners who would be interested in working with Hope Served. For more information, email Schwartz at steve@hopeserved.org or call 717-689-7274. For information on participating in upcoming card-making workshops, search for "Hope Served" on Facebook.