The Salvation Army has incorporated its mission of helping others into its Inman Street Coffeehouse through a youth internship program designed to help develop young leaders.

Coffeehouse manager Joel Rogers said the program is for high school students at least 16 years old with “leadership capabilities who maybe have never had a chance to shine.”

There are currently eight students enrolled in the program now. There is a capacity for 30 to learn about running a business and interface with the public. They learn how to answer the phone, customer service, food serving and food safety skills — things that make them more employable in the long run.

“But these are also things that look good on a resume because the students are able to state they were ‘involved in a long-term mentoring program that I completed,’” Rogers said.

Interns work 350 hours in the three-tiered program that begins with menial chores and ends with the trainees working the cash register and handling money.

Training includes ServSafe food safety measures, customer service and data entry. The interns are also given a spiritual gifts inventory to assess their natural gifts.

“We plug them into the Salvation Army side and the coffeehouse side so they can come in and do some of the basic functions and learn how to be part of an office staff,” Rogers said.

After 50 hours on the first level, interns step up to the next tier where they are introduced to the servant leadership model from a biblical perspective.

“How can we take what we are, as humble as it is, give it to God and become something more, and do something more with their lives than just exist?” Rogers said. “We talk a lot about the life of Christ and we see passages in the New Testament where Christ is actually teaching the same concept. He teaches his disciples by bringing them in the house and washing their feet.”

Rogers said people respond and good things happen when they are loved and “you take a little bit of time to do the right thing.”

Rob Tapley, 16, is a junior at Goal Academy who began his first day Wednesday. He learned about the program through Tanya Southerland, executive director of the anti-drug organization the GRAAB Coalition. GRABB stands for Going Respectfully Against Addictive Behavior. After he found out it was owned and operated by the Salvation Army, he was hooked.

“I love the Salvation Army and would do anything for them because they help me out a lot,” he said.

He said he and his mother Sherri have had to ask for charity in the past.

“They gave us what we needed, we told them thank you and they don’t give us a problem about it. That’s what I love about the Salvation Army,” he said. “They don’t judge anyone.”

He said it does not bother him that he has to start at the bottom by sweeping and mopping.

“I love doing anything for my community. I was born and raised here and have done everything in my power to make the community better,” he said.

He is a Boy Scout and attends church at Mount Olive Ministries. Upon graduation from high school, Tapley wants to attend Cleveland State Community College and become an emergency medical technician.