Pontilly Coffee

You're now traveling with TVMA-C. Come along. Tourism Organization and we also have Pastor Mel. Mel and he's the owner of Pontilli Cafe and Mr. Mel. Pastor Mel, can you tell us a little bit about the background of the Pontilli Coffee Shop? Yes ma'am. What we are first and foremost is a minute. Everybody that works in the coffee house are people that have come through our program that struggle with addiction. Okay. I'll manage it one of our managers there. She's come through our program. The other ladies in the back that I'm going to introduce you to. Now we have a men's ministry and we have a women's ministry. In our men's ministry we have 140 men. Women's ministry 70 women. And then we have a family house for women with children where we have 25 mothers and 53 children. So you're literally giving back to the community. Giving back to the community. We're building not lives and this corner right here used to be an infamous corner before we bought it. Drugs, prostitution. Now it's a place of community. I see that. I would have never gathered that if you wouldn't have told me about what used to be exactly. Yes ma'am. So we also have across the street a car wash. All of those men at the car wash are coming through our program. Behind us we have a man and we have a snowballs and across the street and ladies ministry runs that. We have a thrift store up the street. The next door we're building out of building and we're putting a juice bar smoothie vitamin store. So this area is literally being re-violated by the time you are coming to get your endeavors. Yes ma'am. First we rebuild the lives and then we rebuild the community. You got to start with individuals. I know that's right. That makes community. Yes ma'am. I would have never gathered that because pulling up, So need not being from here, I was So that's a beautiful, that's a beautiful, And the simple fact that you're working on several different entities in the area is priceless as well. You were telling us earlier, Essen and I, about the paintings on the wall. Can you go back into detail with that? Understand that the lady who painted that is an educator? She's an educator and she's just a customer and she had never painted anything for sale. And I just noticed her drawings and I said, would you do something, gave her sizes and, You see one has a punch-a-lead.