COMMUNITY
A 2ND CUP
Houstonians are no strangers to local coffee shops popping up around town
and grounding their roots inside the Loop. And with the recent addition of A
2nd Cup opening in the heart of The Heights district, it might sound like another
variation of what locals want most: unique, vibrant and grounded in Houston.
But something about this latest full-service coffee shop makes it stand out just a
bit more amongst the crowd: its nonprofit status aimed at tackling
human trafficking.
A 2nd Cup is the brainchild of ERICA RAGGETT, a former teacher who spent the
first eight years of her career in education. Always a fan of the coffee shop as
a place to bring people together, she spent years joking with friends that one
day she’d open her own space. But as Erica says with a laugh, “I always had
a deep desire to serve people and not operate a caffeinated coffee shop.” In
2010, while serving students in education, she came across the issue of human
trafficking. “I was horrified and disgusted to learn about how prevalent it was,”
she says. After getting behind a new cause and attending every single local
anti-human trafficking volunteer orientation she could, the idea clicked – open
a coffee shop that focuses solely on helping tackle one of the nation’s biggest
underground problems. And she did just that. In September 2011, she gathered her board of directors and conducted their first meeting. Four years later,
after serving coffee faithfully from a local church, they officially opened their
new space on October 17, 2015, located at 1111 E. 11th St.
By Adam Bergen | Photography by Daniel Ortiz
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L O C A L
| may 16