NELSONVILLE, Ohio — The New Leaf Marketplace reopened to the public March 11 at a new location on Nelsonville Public Square.
An initiative of the Survivor Advocacy Outreach Program, the coffee shop offers workforce development opportunities to SAOP clients.
“It’s gone really well,” SAOP Workforce Development Program Manager Chelsea Dodson said of the shop’s move to its new location. “Our employees are so adaptable, they’re so resilient, and our community has been so supportive.”
At its new location in the Athens County Community Cares Resource Center on West Washington Street, the market offers a variety of beverages and a rotating selection of prepared foods from local business partners. Current options include baked goods from Oracle and Crumbs Bakery, though Dodson said the store is open to entertaining additional partners.
Customers may visit the store inside the resource center or, for the first time, may pick up a beverage and snack at the store’s new drive-thru.
The downsizing of the marketplace –– from 2,000 square feet to a few hundred square feet –– reflects shifts in SAOP’s workforce development program, Dodson said.
Previously, employment at the New Leaf Marketplace was more central to SAOP’s New Leaf program, which SAOP’s website describes as “a long-term, holistic support program for survivors of trauma, substance misuse, and incarceration in Southeast Ohio.”
“Our program provides safe housing, workforce development, supportive services, and financial empowerment to help individuals and families break cycles of poverty, violence, and displacement,” the website reads.
When it initially opened, the New Leaf Marketplace was the center of the organization’s workforce development program. Since then, SAOP has “moved away from the model of people working [at New Leaf Marketplace] for the full duration of their program participation,” Dodson said.
“This has now become a more intentionally shorter workforce development situation, where now we’re encouraging people to reach out into the community a little bit faster,” Dodson said.
Instead of working at the coffee shop for their full two years in the New Leaf program, SAOP clients now spend about six months there. The work allows clients to work on “those hard and soft skills, developing the tools that you need to be successful in an outside placement,” Dodson said.
Clients move on to positions with a community partner organization, with supervisors who have undergone a trauma-informed supervision training that Dodson created.
“We’ve had such great support from ACENet, from Hocking Hills Garment Center, from Passion Works, from Rocky Boots, from JFS, all these people are really supporting our clients through a more clear path forward to independent employment,” Dodson said.
“People are hosted there a couple days a week, so that they get an experience of having someone other than me as their supervisor,” Dodson added. “They get the experience of showing up to a different place, working with different people. But we’re still offering wage incentives, so it’s still a very supportive employment environment.”
The New Leaf Marketplace has been open to those working in the Athens County Community Cares Resource Center for some time. During that time, the marketplace focused on “ensuring that there were no more pain points, ensuring that we had the time and space and capacity to handle rushes, that kind of thing,” Dodson said.
SAOP’s long-term future in the resource center is unclear because of Athens County Job and Family Services’ financial challenges. In November 2025, SAOP received notice that Athens County did not intend to renew the nonprofit’s lease of the space beyond June 30, 2026. At the time, the county was considering selling the Nelsonville building due to the agency’s financial strain.
However, JFS’s financial outlook has improved due to the pending sale of the agency’s former offices on West Union Street in Athens. However, Athens County Commissioner Chris Chmiel told the Independent he still is not certain what the future will hold for the Nelsonville building.
“I haven’t heard anybody saying we need to sell [the Athens County Community Cares Resource Center building] right now,” Chmiel said.
SAOP Executive Director Madison Trace told the Independent she has not received any update on the future of the building since the November notice. Trace said she attended a meeting about a month ago with other community stakeholders about options for the future of the building should the county need to sell it.
“I think right now, it’s really just what the commissioners and JFS … decide once they figure out the financials there,” Trace said.
