SLCC students now have a new way to support one another — simply by grabbing a drink between classes. A new scholarship, funded entirely through beverage sales from Touch Coffee Smart Bars on the Jordan and Westpointe campuses, is transforming everyday purchases into meaningful financial support.
The scholarship will provide $5,000 annually for five years, with the first award dedicated to students in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Future amounts will scale with sales, meaning every latte, matcha, hot chocolate, or protein shake directly contributes to expanding access to higher education.
"Financial support can make a huge difference between access or not to additional education," says David Hillstrom, co-partner of Touch Coffee SLC.
Hillstrom's entrepreneurial work is in addition to being a full-time Spanish teacher in the Granite School District. He works with second- through sixth-grade students in West Valley, and he sees firsthand how challenging college affordability can be for many families. That connection to education is what shaped the scholarship model long before the coffee machines arrived on campuses.
"I've always wanted to do something to give back," he said. "When I saw this business opportunity with Touch Coffee, I thought here is a way to blend giving back with a business I could run while still teaching."
Hillstrom's business partner, Elizabeth Pacheco, is also a teacher, and brings her own lived experience to the project as a first‑generation college student.
"I became interested by the quantity and quality of drinks available and the trend toward self‑serve — it's a barista at your fingertips," Hillstrom said. "I hadn't seen anything like this in Utah, but I wanted to tie it in with giving back to education."
The Touch Coffee's Smart Bars offer more than 30 hot and cold drinks, including sips such as lavender lattes, mango or strawberry matchas, espresso drinks, black coffee, protein shakes, and hot chocolate. The coffee beans come from Colombia (a connection Hillstrom discovered years ago while teaching English) and are ground for each order in the Smart Bar machine.
The locations for the machines (Westpointe and Jordan campuses) were selected because there are few other options for beverages nearby.
Touch Coffee was founded in Canada and is now franchised in Utah, its first location in the US. Utah now has five of the company's Smart Bars, including two at UVU, Hillstrom's alma mater, where similar scholarship support is underway.
For Hillstrom, the project is one-way teachers can make ends meet while still creating community impact outside their own classrooms.
On Thursday, Sept. 17, Touch Coffee will host two happy hours, one at the Westpointe campus (8:00 am – 10:00 am), and another one at the Jordan campus (11:00 am – 1:00 pm).