The Lunch Break

It’s noon at the Refill Café in West Jackson, and the cheerful eatery is hopping.  The bright café hums with lively chatter as workers serve sandwiches and lunch plates to a diverse crowd. For Refill workers like Brantley Hughes, every lunch served is a step toward a new life.

“Four months ago, I could not have imagined being in this spot,” 20-year-old Hughes says. “I’d tell anyone struggling, come to Refill and get into this program.”

Refill Café is a project of the Refill Jackson Initiative, a life skills and workforce training program for young adults struggling to break the barriers of addiction, poverty, crime, and challenging socioeconomic backgrounds.

“Most of our program members have had little or no positive influences in their lives,” says Emily Stanfield, president and CEO of the Refill Jackson Initiative. “As a result, they have a bad picture of themselves.”
 
Refill changes that picture. The 10-week program is a combination of classroom training, life skills coaching, and hands-on work in the Refill Café. Members learn job skills and also develop important soft skills like teamwork, accountability, anger management, and problem solving.

HOPE provided financing for the freestanding building that houses the Refill Café and classrooms. For program members like Hughes, the bright yellow building embodies the chance to rebuild their lives.

Hughes’s drug addiction had cost him his job, his home, and his relationships. He reached a turning point when he witnessed another homeless addict shot over a shoe.
 
“It wasn’t even a pair of shoes,” Brantley says, his voice shaking. “It was a shoe. By that point, I was a typical crackhead. I weighed less than 100 pounds. I was homeless, I was dirty, I was constantly scared, and I was staying strung out and awake for days at a time. I knew I had to get help or I’d be dead.”
 
A rehab program helped Hughes get clean, but he needed a new direction that would keep him on the right path. He found that direction within the walls of Refill. Since completing the program in 2019, Hughes has repaired his broken relationships with his family and is on track to re-enter the workforce.

“I’m proud of myself,” Hughes says. “The Refill staff is proud that I’ve come this far and they let me know every day they’re proud of me. If you put 100 percent into Refill, you get more than 100 percent back.”