Good morning, everyone.
My name's Conor O'Regan.
I'm a rising senior
at the Paul College,
majoring in business
administration
with a focus in marketing
and a minor in communication.
And I'm Alison Egan.
I am also a rising senior,
and I'm majoring, well,
dual majoring in journalism
and sustainability.
Over the past summer, we've
had the pleasure of interning
at the Freedom Cafe.
I've been working on
communication and brand
development, and Alison has
been working on cafe management.
My internship was made
possible this summer
thanks to a generous donation
from two UNH alumni, Scott
and Terry Sorensen,
who are here today,
and I'd like to personally thank
for their generous donation.
So for those of you who may
be unfamiliar with the Freedom
Cafe, it was founded in 2013
as a non-profit specialty
cafe with a mission of
ending human trafficking
and the commercial
exploitation of all people.
While the definition
of human trafficking
is quite complex and hard
to understand completely,
it can be simply defined as the
exploitation of an individual
through force,
fraud, and coercion.
At the Freedom Cafe,
community engagement
is at the core of our
mission statement.
As a result, our
theory of change
revolves heavily around
individuals coming together
to make a difference.
Our theory of change
is multifaceted.
But at its forefront,
it is about serving
ethically sourced food and
drinks at a recommended
donation to members of
the local community,
ethically sourced
just meaning that it
was produced without the use of
forced labor or exploitation.
Some other aspects of
our theory of change
include hosting educational
and community events,
conducting research, providing
volunteers with real world work
experience, and being
a collaborative space
for individuals to feel
like they can take action
against an industry, which
collects over $150 billion
of revenue per year,
a figure greater
than the revenues of Apple,
Nike, Netflix, and Starbucks
combined.
So this summer, I had a
really cool opportunity
to continue my role
as a cafe manager
and pursue it as my internship.
So in addition to that, I was
able to develop a new training
toolkit that is designed to
streamline all future volunteer
practices.
And so restructuring the
volunteer management program
and ensuring consistency and
clarity across all aspects
of being a cafe assistant.
Our cafe operations rely
heavily on volunteer efforts.
So it was important to me
that all of our volunteers
are receiving the same training,
knowledge, and feedback
that they need to be
successful in their roles
as cafe assistants.
So I'm really excited about
what I have accomplished.
I have updated all of our
volunteer training materials.
I've developed
new drink training
videos of all of our specialty
drinks that we make in-house.
I've optimized and simplified
all of our in-house recipes,
and have implemented a brand
new digital training checklist
that will be updated in real
time during a volunteer shift,
so that they can kind of gauge
their progress along the way
and review or relearn
anything that they need to,
so that moving forward,
all of our volunteers
will be properly
trained and will
be producing the same
high quality drinks
and service to all
of our customers.
My internship this summer
was focused heavily
on redesigning our conscious
consumer materials,
specifically from
our postcard series.
These were designed to
allow aspiring activists
to have a handy
reference to learn more
about the ethical
production of goods
that they consume every day.
Additionally, I managed various
mission of awareness campaigns
across our social
media platforms.
Our biggest
fundraiser this summer
was for New Hampshire
Gives, which
is a 24 hour charity marathon
for New Hampshire nonprofits.
Our project for New
Hampshire Gives this year
was to be able to host two
interns from Mumbai, India who
are survivors of
human trafficking
and provide them
with the resources
that they need to start
and operate their own cafe
and healing center in
Mumbai's Red Light District
in support of other survivors
of human trafficking.
I was able to manage the online
promotion for this campaign,
and after the week
long donation window,
we were able to
raise about $3,500
to pay for these two interns.
Additionally, I
optimized and made
consistent the information
available on our Freedom Cafe
website, as well
as the information
available to customers
within the store
to make sure it was
accessible to all.
The short term successes
of my internship
look like the numbers
you see on the screen.
Within the first
month of starting,
I was able to increase our post
reach by over 600%, our post
engagements by over 400%, and
our new page likes by over 80%.
However, looking
forward, I'm hoping
that this increased online
presence from the cafe
will allow for a smoother
process and more routine posts,
which will result in higher
levels of consumer engagement
and retention.
Additionally, with our
conscious consuming materials
being more accessible and
consistent in web and print
formats, aspiring
activists looking
to make a change in
their local communities
will have an easier time
finding and utilizing
the resources that could
ignite their personal journey
in the fight against
human trafficking.
So these past nine weeks have
been really valuable for Conor
and I. Brian, the director of
the cafe, has worked with us
personally on developing
our strengths and passions
and encouraging us to
become future leaders.
So we've been able to
use those strengths
and passions to
pursue projects that
will further the cafe mission.
And we're so excited to
have had this opportunity.
And we just want to say thanks
to Brian for believing in us.
Thank you, Brian, and thank you
everyone else for listening.
Yeah.
[APPLAUSE]
