GET Cafe in Narberth, Pennsylvania wins CBS Philadelphia's 2025 Hometown Heartbeat Award
Each year, CBS Philadelphia gives out our Hometown Heartbeat Award, recognizing businesses that are working to make our communities better. The winning business receives $50,000 and $25,000 in advertising.
This year's recipient is GET Cafe in Narberth, Montgomery County, which is making a difference through coffee and connection.
When you step into GET Cafe on Haverford Avenue in Narberth, the shop is bustling. From the delicious baked goods to the loyal customers, you quickly realize it's a unique place — but what makes the cafe so special are the people who work there.
The cafe is a nonprofit that hires neurodivergent individuals and people with disabilities, giving them a job, a paycheck and a sense of independence.
"To be honest, I don't think many people believed that this was possible," said Brooke Goodspeed, the cafe's founder. "We've paid out over a million dollars to individuals with disabilities through our payroll."
Goodspeed is a nurse practitioner with a Ph.D. in nursing with a focus on autism spectrum disorder. She started GET Cafe as a sensory community space inspired by her now 15-year-old son Oliver. The payroll now has 33 people on its staff.
"Oliver's the inspiration, because after he was born, this became part of my world," said Goodspeed. "As a professional, I really wanted to support the disability community to live longer, healthier lives."
As Goodspeed gave a tour of the cafe, the CBS Philadelphia team surprised her, announcing the GET Cafe as the winner of the 2025 CBS Philadelphia Hometown Heartbeat Award. She was stunned.
"I'm proud, I'm immensely proud," Goodspeed said of the award. "We were just stubborn and refused to take no for an answer. We hope to do this for a very long time and this will help."
Last year's award went to Unrivaled Screen Printing.