The palm trees and painted bamboo fences that surround Coco Beach Presents on Pacific Coast Highway only tell part of the story behind the Latin fusion-inspired restaurant. Inside is a community effort like no other: youth from throughout Long Beach are learning how to run a business through the hands-on vision of Our Generation Cares (OGC).
Alba Danley and Shelly Guevara not only saved an immigrant-run Long Beach business from closing its doors during the COVID-19 pandemic, they have also turned it into a “youth incubator” over the last year.
“The biggest thing I’ve noticed with this generation is they want change, they want things to be better but they don’t know how to do that,” said Guevara, co-founder of OGC. “We’re trying to create this platform of—we’re gonna teach you how to be your own entrepreneur and how you can make a difference in your community.”
Members of the program, ages 14 to 24 and many from low-income communities and foster care, are taught kitchen skills from professional cooks, financial literacy from professional accountants and the power of community through the multiple small businesses they pour their time and passion into.
Since opening Coco Beach Presents in June, OGC has been able to offer paid hands-on skills training for its youth within a number of industries including car detailing, restaurant-style cooking, mobile pet grooming and party bus driving. They also learn credit building, bookkeeping, merchandising, branding, design, electrical work, reading spreadsheets, artistic direction and more.
“They’re very young and they started this organization, and they’re helping people affected by COVID-19 and it showed me that I can also do something similar,” said Erick Garcia, a 23-year-old member of OGC. “I learned that I can do a little bit of everything and I hope to one day start my own business.”
Garcia was the third member to join OGC, and one of the oldest volunteers. He has learned how to transform his passion for graphic design into merchandise for OGC, and how to talk to people more confidently. He has also learned bookkeeping and balancing spreadsheets during his time with the nonprofit.
“I never thought that I would be able to learn how to cook or be involved in a lot of important things…like event planning and coordinating and running a restaurant or venue,” Garcia said.
As the pandemic forced many businesses to permanently close their doors, Danely and Guevara searched for ways to help members of their community stay afloat. They began volunteering full-time to help small businesses with their bookkeeping, accounting and management needs. Resources from the City were scarce, they explained, especially for businesses located in low-income areas.
One of Danely’s clients had bought his business, a Mexican restaurant named Malika’s Grill, weeks before the pandemic hit. He had poured his life savings into the location, but by June 2020 costs began piling up, and he was nearly forced to close.
“Impacting the youth is the only way that we’re going to help our community not have a fallout like what happened with the pandemic, is teaching that next generation of business owners how to be well prepared…”
Alba Danely, co-founder of Our Generation Cares
Danely started a GoFundMe page for the restaurant which amassed nearly $60,000 in donations to help keep the business afloat, mainly from business owners ages 17-24. She was inspired by the response from the community and poured her life savings into investments at Coco Beach Presents with the belief that once people in Long Beach heard about OGC’s potential, they would lend a helping hand.
“Things will be okay,” Danely said. “I’m going to one day be able to breathe and not be in so much financial debt. But every day we’ve been pushing through.”
Miraculously, Danely said, youth from the community found them first. As the two women were working on reestablishing Malika’s Grill as Coco Beach Presents and completing renovations to the exterior, young people from the surrounding neighborhoods noticed and wanted to help.
“After that, we both realized our generation cares,” Danely said. “It’s the youth, who are these entrepreneurs, who will make a difference in our low-income communities.”
OGC takes community volunteering to the next level, creating an “ecosystem of community growth,” where the volunteers are gaining just as much as the businesses they’re working with. One of the most important aspects of the program is learning how to balance finances to grow generational wealth, something often overlooked in low-income communities.
When members enter the program, they fill out a form explaining the skills they have, what they want to learn and their income along with all of their expenses; their net income. It’s a jumping-off point to help the students learn how to manage their finances while giving them the tools and resources they need to transform their interests into a growing business for themselves.
From the left, Shelly Guevara, Anna Alma Lorenzano and Erick Garcia review what is written on an order ticket before Garcia prepares the order on Nov. 1, 2022. Garcia and Alma Lorenzano are part of the Our Generation Cares youth employment program. Both have recently started working at the Coco Beach Presents restaurant on PCH in Long Beach. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune) 
Erick Garcia, 23, who is working as the lead chef at Coco Beach Presents on Nov. 1, 2022, reviews an order ticket before making a set of three Baja-style fish tacos. Garcia is part of the Our Generation Cares youth employment program, which helped secure this job for him around three months prior. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune) 
Erick Garcia, 23, working as the lead chef at Coco Beach Presents on Nov. 1, 2022, presses down the “Governator” tacos as he plates the meal that will soon be taken out to hungry guests at the restaurant. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune) 
Erick Garcia, 23, working as the lead chef at Coco Beach Presents on Nov. 1, 2022, adds a pinch of mozzarella cheese onto some tortillas that he will fill with shrimp and pepper to make the “Governator” tacos served in the restaurant. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune)
“Impacting the youth is the only way that we’re going to help our community not have a fallout like what happened with the pandemic, is teaching that next generation of business owners how to be well prepared, how to set themselves up, connecting with their banker, learning about how to find different resources within your city,” Guevara said.
OGC is now in the works of partnering with Los Angeles nonprofit Elevate and Long Beach nonprofit Pacific Gateway to expand their paid internship opportunities. The organizations will help funnel youth members into more diverse internships with opportunities to earn more than minimum wage.
The organization recently hosted its first ESL (English as a second language) workshop for members and workers at Coco Beach Presents, many of whom only speak Spanish. They will soon expand to American Sign Language classes.
With so many projects and innovative plans, it’s been difficult to explain their vision to outsiders.
“The next big innovative idea sometimes can be scary, because not a lot of people understand the amount of love that we have put into this business,” Danely said. “This is our baby. We didn’t do it for the money, we did it because it was the right thing to do when all the social injustice around us was going on.”
Growth has been slow, Danely explained, due to hurdles from the City. Coco Beach Presents has been attempting to switch from a sole proprietorship to a corporation for almost two years and is facing obstacles in obtaining a business license for the nonprofit. These issues have kept OGC from qualifying for numerous grants that would help propel its vision.
Along with bureaucratic struggles, Coco Beach Presents also faces issues with Rotary Centennial Park, with whom they share a lot. The park’s outdated equipment offers very little light at night, and OGC has had to call the non-emergency police line multiple times due to “altercations” with people who stay at the park overnight.
“Governator” tacos wait plated on a wooden tray as lead chef for the night, Erick Garcia, approaches with some last toppings for the dish on Nov. 1, 2022. 23-year-old Garcia started working at the restaurant around three months ago as part of a youth employment program with Our Generation Cares in Long Beach (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune) 
23-year-old chef-for-the-day Erick Garcia adds a drizzle of chipotle crema to a plate of Baja-style fish tacos that he made for hungry customers at Coco Beach Presents on Nov. 1, 2022. Garcia is part of an employment program with Our Generation Cares in Long Beach that helped secure the job for him while he was volunteering with the nonprofit. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune)
During the year-long process of revamping Coco Beach Presents, the restaurant has been unable to get proper internet access. The cost to get the internet installed has been estimated at over $40,000. The lack of resources makes it impossible to install high-quality security cameras which would increase the safety of the staff and members of OGC.
“The community partnership with small businesses, that’s no problem. That’s really what has fueled us and what keeps us going,” Danely said. “I have not seen the same love and care from people who are in higher positions who have more power or more of a platform to share. I don’t see the follow through and it’s a little disappointing … I don’t feel the same from the City of Long Beach which has been our biggest setback.”
OGC was able to attain a second location back in July at the Grace on 3rd Community Center 2325 E Third St.) in Downtown Long Beach. They have partnered with Coach Cameron, a Long Beach-based youth sports program for children ages 10 to 16. The community center focuses on its younger members of the program. It offers a youth learning center, a basketball gym, a stage for students to perform and an enrichment center with desks and Chromebooks “to build career pathways and entrepreneurial skills.”
Youth in Long Beach who are interested in joining Our Generation Cares should email info@ogcareslabs.com or message them on social media @ourgenerationcares. The application process begins with a simple conversation between the student, their parents and OGC.
To support OGC, stop by Coco Beach Presents at 2300 E Pacific Coast Highway Tuesdays and Wednesdays from noon to 8 p.m., Thursdays through Saturdays from noon to 10 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The restaurant hosts community vendors for a pop-up market featuring live music each Thursday evening and will be hosting a fundraiser on Nov. 20, where they will be giving away tamales to celebrate the World Cup.
