Damon's Mission: The Secret To Life Is Servant Leadership

Community Impact of The Coffee Bean

Coffee Bean CARES

Damon and his wife, Kendell, created the Be A Coffee Bean Foundation to address generational incarceration. Their CARES initiative creates extra-curricular opportunities for children who have incarcerated parents and helps repair the parent-child bond that is so fractured by the parents’ mistakes that incarcerated them.

To Learn more about the Coffee Bean Cares Program, click the button below.

Advocacy for Correctional Workers in America

With 95% of convicted men and women returning to their communities one day, corrections is one of the most important jobs in society. The men and women who staff America’s correctional facilities perform an often overlooked and thankless job. Damon voluntarily goes into prisons to speak to correctional staffs and encourage them in their mission. His main goals are to show them an example of a formerly incarcerated individual who fully rehabilitated and to thank them for the jobs they perform.

Be the Change Prison Curriculum

In 2021, Damon, along with Dr. Lisa Spain and Rex Spain, created the Be the Change Prison Curriculum. The pilot class at the Wynne Unit, in Huntsville, Texas, was provided at no cost to the taxpayers. A first of its kind prison curriculum that is:

1) Created by a formerly incarcerated individual.
2) Peer-taught by other inmates – because Damon learned the value of inmate-taught classes while he was in prison.
3) An evidenced-based, accountability-driven 20 lessons that empowers the incarcerated individual to take control of their thinking so they can change their own lives.

The Coffee Bean
Prison Tour

When you book Damon to speak, he loves to search for correctional facilities in your area so that he can voluntarily visit (if time permits while in town) to bring hope to the residents there. Damon understands that his incredible second chance in life comes with spiritual-strings attached. He must always find ways to put back into the stream-of-life. His redemption story is the dream for every incarcerated man and woman in prison. As such, he makes himself available to inmates all over America so that they may “touch the dream”. His relentless drive to volunteer in prisons has earned him the nickname “Smuggler of Hope” by his fellow brothers and sisters who are incarcerated.

The Dallas SWAT Project

In 2025, Damon was able to meet with Dallas SWAT, the same agency who took him down and brought justice to him on July 30, 2008. Or, in Damon’s words: “Dallas SWAT didn’t just arrest me that day; rather, they RESCUED me that day.”

During the meeting, Damon was able to thank those brave men and women for pulling him out of a world of drugs and crime that he could not remove himself from. To show his gratitude, Damon began buying and donating tactical gear SWAT needed so that they could safely protect the citizens of Dallas and save other lost souls like him. The gear has a “Be a Coffee Bean” Velcro patch on it.

Coffee Bean Support
in Communities

Kendell and Damon are using the Be A Coffee Bean platform to enhance communities by: sponsoring youth sports teams, making contributions to causes that align with the message and mission, donating books to correctional institutions and schools, and sponsorships for community events.

THE JAMES LYNN BAKER II
BE A COFFEE BEAN SCHOLARSHIP

When Damon was released in prison, he immediately began searching for Muhammad, the man who told him the story of the coffee bean in Dallas County Jail, back in 2009. Unfortunately, he discovered Muhammed (whose real name is James Lynn Baker II) passed away from an opiate overdose.

Undeterred, Damon then went to find Muhammad’s family so that he could share with them the impact he had on both Damon’s life and the world with the coffee bean. To honor his friend, Damon created the James Lynn Baker II – Be a Coffee Bean Scholarship. Each year, Damon funds the college scholarship and Muhammad’s family picks the winner. Today, Muhammad is forever memorialized in the educational opportunities for young men and women to pursue a college education.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE SCHOLARSHIP

Past Scholarship Recipients

“Winning this scholarship is such a blessing for me and my family. Without this scholarship, I honestly don’t know how my parents or myself would have been able to pay for a higher education. My mother is an elementary school teacher and my father is a disabled veteran, so paying for my college caused a lot of financial distress in our home. When I found out I had won this scholarship I could feel the stress lifted off of my shoulders and I felt like I could finally breathe. Words truly can’t express the gratitude my family and I have for The Good Samaritan at the Baker Estate! Thank you so much and God bless you!”

“I would just like to thank you guys again for your consideration and your generosity. I can’t even describe how this scholarship saved my life. I am now in my second semester of my freshman year at Midwestern State University and I am on track to be admitted into the radiology program and if it was not for this scholarship, I would have had to pay thousands of dollars and even take out some loans just for my first year. Instead, my entire first year was completely paid for and I even had money left over to sustain me. I am extremely grateful.”

“I am a high school senior in the P-TECH Early College Program at South Oak Cliff High School, where I am earning my high school diploma while completing college coursework through Dallas College. I rank in the first quartile of my class and serve as a Varsity Cheerleading Captain, which has strengthened my leadership, discipline, and teamwork skills. I was born three months premature and faced early health challenges that shaped my resilience and determination. As the oldest of four children, I learned responsibility early and strive to lead by example.”