A small café steps from the Beaches boardwalk is stirring up more than coffee. Judy’s Beach Café — a new social enterprise that trains and employs adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities — officially opens Sept. 1, giving local residents not just sandwiches and smoothies, but also a chance to see inclusion in action.
The café is the brainchild of retired special needs teachers Donna Shannon Paterson and Leslie Grant, longtime residents of the Beaches area. Both women have dreamed of a café like this for years. For Paterson, the intentionality of the café runs deep: her youngest sister, Judy, was born with down syndrome and passed away a year ago.