Ask a Community Cafe Director

A free café designed around dignity instead of efficiency

How My Restaurant Works, Miranda Escalante, and Justin Lewis - May 06, 2026

What makes you want to get out of bed every day and do the work you do? How did you find your way to the Asheville Poverty Initiative and 12 Baskets?

I’ve been fortunate to work with a range of causes and nonprofits over the years, but what makes our work at the Asheville Poverty Initiative different is how deeply relational it is. We center community in everything we do. While issues like housing, healthcare, education, and economic justice are all critically important, we believe that disconnection is often at the root of those injustices.

If we were truly connected—if we lived in what Dr. King called the Beloved Community—we wouldn’t accept people being unhoused, unfed, or without access to basic needs.

So for me, this work is about rebuilding that connection. It’s about elevating love as a real, practical force for change, and modeling the kind of community we want to live in.

I’ve come to believe that deeply. If I can show up at 12 Baskets or a poverty education event and both offer and receive love, then I feel like I’ve done something meaningful that day.

I also see this work as a form of protest. I’ve spent years organizing and pushing back against broken systems, and that work matters. But API allows me to do something more: to actively build and participate in an alternative. Every day, we’re practicing a different way of being—one rooted in abundance rather than scarcity, and in dignity rather than division.

At 12 Baskets, that looks like people coming together across differences—sitting at the same table with folks they might not otherwise meet, sharing food, stories, and space. It’s a small but powerful example of the kind of community I believe is possible, and it’s something we get to live out every single day.