Two years after opening, the mission of Sip of Hope coffee bar in Logan Square has caught the eye of some Hollywood players — Damon Wayans Jr. and Mayim Bialik, to be exact. According to entertainment reports, the two are involved in producing “Hope Cafe,” a comedy being developed by NBC.
Jonathan (aka Jonny) Boucher, CEO and founder of Hope for the Day, the foundation from which Sip of Hope was born, was excited to share the news this month. Per Boucher, Wayans’ production creative team reached out to him in March prepandemic. While momentum slowed a bit because of COVID-19, by October, he learned that Bialik was joining the project.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh! Are you kidding me?’ What’s amazing about her is that she’s a neuroscientist too. So, it’s like, what better dynamic duo?” Boucher said.
Hope for the Day (4252 N. Cicero Ave.) is a nonprofit focused on proactive suicide prevention and mental health education. Sip of Hope baristas are trained to offer peer support to customers seeking assistance or someone to talk to. All profits from the coffee shop go toward mental health education programs offered through Hope for the Day.
Sip of Hope is a safe space within a community, something that Boucher wants to keep growing as more coffee bars are created. “People come here … get reminded when they walk in we’re just community members … ones who choose to talk about it (mental health) on the good days and bad days,” Boucher said. The organization’s motto is “It’s OK Not to Be OK.”
Boucher, a Berwyn resident, said he understands the show will be a comedy, but he said he was adamant that the mental health theme be taken seriously. The goal of the show is to be able to present the realities of mental health in our communities, including the destructiveness of suicide and its rise during the pandemic.
“Hope Cafe” will look at the interconnected relationships of customers and the baristas who are trained as mental health counselors. Boucher said the writers of the show will go through Hope for the Day’s “Things We Don’t Say” Workshop — a program designed to teach people how to understand self-care and be supportive of others’ mental health care. Practical skills for early recognition of mental health challenges are taught in the workshop. The intent is to make sure the show’s writers understand the language to use when dealing with mental health concerns.
Boucher wants “Hope Cafe” to serve as a conversation starter on mental health and suicide. With suicide as the second leading cause of death for young people between 10 to 24, Boucher said the time is now.
Hope for the Day began in 2011 after Boucher’s friend and mentor Mike Scanland died by suicide. Boucher remembers his concert promoter friend being the ninth person in his life who had died in this manner at that time.
“I’ve lost 16 people to suicide — two people are my mom’s brother and sister. And I’ve had friends and other community members take their lives,” he said. “Mike was the guy who I wanted to become in the music industry. Mike taught me a lot of great lessons for business, and he taught me one about mental health — you’ve got to talk about it.”
Hope for the Day is focused on being less reactive about mental health and more proactive. According to Boucher, in October, Hope for the Day launched a coffee roasting arm that buys coffee ethically and responsibly in places like Mexico, Nicaragua and Papua New Guinea. Boucher hopes to have an impact on those communities through the organization’s mental health education programs as well. Its flagship coffee is called Conversation Starter. The coffee’s packaging includes mental health resources, Boucher added.
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Hope for the Day’s 2020 mission was to have 20,000 people go through a peer-led and clinically backed mental health education program. It reached 28,000, and the year isn’t over yet. 2021’s education goal: 50,000.
There’s no firm timeline for when “Hope Cafe” will start production (with COVID-19 still being a factor), but Boucher said he thinks the production companies’ goal is to get the best product done and onto TVs as soon as possible. The production companies said in a joint statement about the project: “Thematically, this is about the universal journey to find happiness, fulfillment and connection, and the friends and community we lean on for support when times get tough.”
“I feel like all of our efforts at Hope for the Day and Sip of Hope, they’re just these little steppingstones for the mental health community to grow stronger, have a wider and much more present voice, more inclusion,” Boucher said. “My hope is that, as soon as we can, we can get this up on the airwaves because I know that right now, we need daily reminders, constant reminders that it’s OK not to be OK and that there is help out there.”