“When you have great teachers, the things that typically hold them back in schools [is] the ecosystem around them,” Tracy Skelly said, introducing herself on a recent 9:30 Call, where she explained her transition from education to what she called “operations.”
What kind of ecosystems don’t work? Skelly points to food — and to the challenges of getting children to eat nutritious meals. It’s a problem that Skelly herself experienced as a new mom ending her maternity leave and heading back to work.
One solution that Skelly devised was launching the Little Cocoa Bean Company, a cafe for children located in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood. The cafe serves food that is healthy, appealing to children, and culturally enriched. Skelly says it’s a matter of treating children “like honored guests” by making their food “interesting and fun and delicious.”
For Skelly, who is a Panamanian, Afro-Latina, feeding children well is also about food justice. Skelly was exposed to the impact of food insecurity on her students’ ability to learn when she taught in Houston through Teach for America. This experience led her to pursue a master’s degree in Education Policy and Management at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
As a cafe, Little Cocoa Bean Company breaks the mold. It has a Montessori playspace because, as Skelly says, “Children are children. They don’t sit perfectly still at a dinner table, and they don’t need to. They’re explorers, and we wanted to build a space where they felt welcome and seen, where their parents feel welcomed and seen.
“Your child spills something, we don’t expect a ton of apologies for it. If your child wants to eat while they play, if you’re comfortable with that, we’re comfortable with that… We’re developing our own brand of hospitality that centers families.”
The cafe is also a community center, a “third place” for families, that offers parenting classes and provides parents with crucial supplies like diapers.
To learn more about Skelly, Little Bean, and great ideas about kids, food, justice, and fun, check out the video.