MyLife’s Coffee Trailer: Inclusive jobs and delicious coffee

A coffee trailer popped up in the South Burnett this week serving delicious brews and job opportunities for young NDIS participants.

Zach Riley, 14, and La'toya Barkle, 20, working in the new Nanango coffee trailer.

A new coffee trailer popped up in Nanango this week and the coffee has been described as “delicious” while the business does much more by giving opportunities to young people on the NDIS.

Across the road from Peries IGA in Nanango, Zach Riley was serving customers on Thursday afternoon alongside his NDIS support worker La’toya Barkle.

14-year-old Zach Riley serving coffee to Johanna King from the new MyLife Coffee trailer.

The bubbly 14-year-old is a client of MyLife, a disability support service founded by Nanango resident Timothy Walsh.

Mr Walsh said he came up with the idea for the coffee trailer after seeing many of his young clients struggling to find work.

“A lot of these guys have been applying for jobs for years, can’t get anything and they were feeling quite ejected,” Mr Walsh said.

“Perhaps they don’t interview too well or once an employer finds out they’ve got a disability, it’s often in the too-hard basket because they don’t have the resources or the training or experience to take on someone like that.

“So what I thought about is getting a coffee trailer and getting my participants to work.”

Ms Barkle, who was working alongside Zach, said it gave them something to put on their resume.

Timothy Walsh, founder of MyLife outside his new coffee business which employs young people on the NDIS.

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“If they ever do want to go and get another job then they’ve got the experience of barista and customer service,” she said.

Mr Walsh said his program stands out from others as he is paying them as employees with full award wages and superannuation.

“There’s other workplace programs but the participants are either getting nothing or they’re getting such a low rate of a few dollars an hour and that is not really fair pay,” Mr Walsh said.

He said the operation would be cost neutral as they still charged for a support worker but were hoping locals would support the business.

“We will only get some money back if we sell some coffees so it will be really great just to see people come down,” Mr Walsh said.

“If they buy a coffee they will really be supporting the project and they’re giving these participants experience that they otherwise wouldn’t get.”

Johanna King called the coffee “delicious.”

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Zach said he enjoyed working in the coffee trailer, making the coffee and serving the customers describing it as “pretty chill”.

Customer Johanna King drove from out of town just to buy a coffee from the trailer and had one word to describe it.

“Delicious,” she said.

The coffee cart is open from 6.30am to 4.30pm Monday to Friday on the corner of Elk and Fitzroy streets, opposite the IGA.