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Andrew Morton makes an Italian cream soda at A.M. Donuts & Coffee as he trains staff from The Arc of the Ozarks.
Andrew Morton makes an Italian cream soda at A.M. Donuts & Coffee as he trains staff from The Arc of the Ozarks.

Nonprofit buys food truck as entrepreneurial venture

The Arc of the Ozarks giving jobs to those with disabilities via A.M. Donuts

Posted online

The entrepreneurial spirit is alive at The Arc of the Ozarks, as the nearly 60-year-old nonprofit is now the owner of a food truck.

Mike Powers, president and CEO of Arc of the Ozarks, said the recent purchase of A.M. Donuts & Coffee LLC food truck would provide work and training opportunities for its clients with disabilities while continuing to serve doughnuts and beverages at various sites in the area.

“We do a wide range of job services and assisting individuals in finding jobs,” Powers said, noting the A.M. Donuts & Coffee purchase represents an “entrepreneurial opportunity” for the nonprofit’s clients.

He declined to disclose the financial details of the asset purchase agreement with food truck founders Angela and Andrew Morton. The Mortons, who started the business in 2017, announced the sale in an April 1 Facebook post.

“It was always a side thing for us,” Andrew Morton said. “We kind of live our life blindly. We needed something at the time that we had control of and could work as I had the summers off.”

At the time the couple launched A.M. Donuts, Andrew Morton was a full-time special education teacher at Nixa Public Schools. He most recently taught at Willard Public Schools before being hired last July by Arc of the Ozarks as a behavior consultant, he said.

“I started working with The Arc and it all fell together in an amazing way,” he said.

Tim Dygon, executive vice president of Arc of the Ozarks, said the idea to explore an entrepreneurship opportunity had been discussed occasionally for years. The connection with the Mortons was happenstance, he said.

“We want to have a program that really operates just like a business that will allow people with disabilities to learn skills and allow them to be employed in the food truck or elsewhere,” Dygon said.

Working with a $57 million annual operating budget, Powers said Arc of the Ozarks provides residential, educational, advocacy and other services for people with disabilities.

Setting a plan
The Mortons are helping with the transition as Arc of the Ozarks staff, such as Angela Johnson and Amanda Line with the nonprofit’s employment solutions department, get up to speed.

“The Mortons are going to continue to assist us,” Powers said. “They’ve got all the connections and the contacts.”

The training already has started, as Andrew Morton worked with Johnson and Line April 10 at the Farmers Market of the Ozarks, where A.M. Donuts has been selling since 2018. The truck’s weekly appearances at Farmers Park and its business name will continue, Dygon said.

The nonprofit staff also is teaching its clients as they learn to run the food truck over roughly the next month. In May, the truck will start to expand its number of community appearances. Operation plans call for a six-day, 40-hour weekly schedule by June, Dygon said, adding the truck will appear at local businesses Wednesday through Friday.

“Our primary way to do this is booking with businesses,” he said of the food truck’s expanded travel schedule.

Johnson, director of employment solutions at Arc of the Ozarks, said A.M. Donuts serves as a training ground for nonprofit clients looking to build or strengthen work skills.

“It’s an employment program for individuals who maybe aren’t quite ready to work in the community completely independently,” she said, noting there’s no designated amount of time for clients to be in the program. “They might just need some soft skill development. The truck will be a great atmosphere for them. There’s so many jobs on it that an individual can learn – everything from food prep to making drinks to customer service to running a cash register.”

Some may start working on the truck and after honing their skills decide they want to find another job in the community, Johnson said.

“That’s our goal for individuals: If they want to work, we support them with finding that,” she said, noting staff also will spend extra time with those struggling to develop some of the skills.

There’s no estimate of how many clients the program may impact, organizers say. Dygon said all participating clients will be paid at least minimum wage.

Victory vision
While one nonprofit has just started testing the entrepreneurial waters, another longtime nonprofit, Victory Mission & Ministry, has been swimming in it for a few years. Victory Mission has sold coffee through its social enterprise, For Victory, since 2018. The coffee business had its best financial year in 2020, said Victory Mission Executive Director Jason Hynson.

Last year’s revenue was $56,000, he said, up 60% from 2019.

Hynson said if not for the COVID-19 pandemic impacting churches – a target customer base of For Victory coffee – sales would have been higher.

“COVID caused us to struggle,” he said, noting private custom coffee labels the nonprofit offered customers was a fourth quarter success. “We had to get creative. We pushed and had a $10,000 November (in revenue). It was outstanding.”

Coffee sales this year are slower than 2020 at roughly $11,000 through March, Hynson said. However, he’s confident revenue from church customers will increase as occupancy restrictions and mask mandates continue to ease.

Victory Mission also expanded briefly into food sales, as Legacy Bagelry & Bakery LLC in 2018 donated its The Mighty Bagel food cart and branding rights to the nonprofit, according to past reporting. Hynson said the venture struggled to find enough volunteers willing to commit time to make fresh bagels and sell them at venues, such as the Commercial Street Farmers Market.

“We realized it was a losing market,” he said, noting the nonprofit tried the concept for about six months before shutting it down. “We loved the idea.”

Living on
The Mortons say they’re glad to see A.M. Donuts live on.

“With five kids, I didn’t want to take on life with all of them and be self-employed full time,” Andrew Morton said, noting he long ago envisioned the food truck could serve as a business teaching tool.

“It’s at a place where adults need those services more,” he said of Arc of the Ozarks. “This opportunity is really great to have.”

Dygon said the investment in a food truck doesn’t signal any change of direction for the nonprofit, which started in 1964.

“We’re not deviating from our mission to serve people with disabilities. This really helps in our ability to do it in a different way, particularly for employment,” he said. “If we ever venture off into something, it’s always going to be in our same spirit or mission.”

Digital Editor Geoff Pickle contributed.

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