Covenant Media

It’s 8a.m and Kenny Pearson starts his day driving through an east Bakersfield neighborhood, heading to a place he and others like him rarely go.

Pearson is going to work.

For more than a month now Pearson has been employed at Covenant Coffee, a non-profit coffee roasting company in Bakersfield that employs former foster youth who quite literately have no where to go.

But you wouldn’t expect to see Pearson working and thriving, that’s because months ago he was homeless, living on the streets in Bakersfield and far removed from any hope in his life.

“I was in foster homes for about four years,” said Pearson who recalls living in more than twenty different homes until he was eighteen, Pearson recently aged out of the system.

“Once I turned eighteen I pretty much got kicked out,” Pearson told Covenant Media. “It’s really difficult to just be thrown on your own without any idea of what to do.”

With little options and no employable job skills Pearson was soon becoming another statistic.

“It’s very hard for a youth that’s 19 years old to go and find a job when they have had no skills set developed in them,” said Randy Martin CEO and founder of Covenant Community Services, a non-profit ministry in Bakersfield that provides hope and love to foster youth.

“Covenant Coffee will change that. Were going to give career option so that kids like Kenny, who was actually homeless and dealing with a variety of struggles can now be employed.”

According to the state of California, during 2008-2009, 129 Kern County foster youth emancipated from the system, and many had no place to live or family to aid them.

Statistics that inspired Covenant Coffee founder Isaac Dennis to roast coffee.

“There has to be more to it than roasting coffee and brewing it and selling it, said Dennis.

There has to be a way we can incorporate the lost and the hurting.”

Now Dennis is seeing that mission play out in the lives of former foster youth like Kenny Pearson.

“The world doesn’t here success stories from these guy,” Dennis said as he looked at Pearson, “but were here to change that.”

Dennis says his mission is to propel foster youth like Pearson to success, to one day have the community see him as a full functioning successful adult.

A story and a life Kenny Pearson is ready to believe in.