Her message of faith, hope, and love is timeless, but her story demonstrates how faith, hope, and love can be applied to address everyday needs is our community.
Stephen Boyle, Organizer - Bakersfield Prayer Breakfast
As a restorative leadership speaker, youth empowerment speaker, and founder of Old Skool Café,
Teresa Goines helps audiences rethink leadership, community, and restoration through the lens of compassion, opportunity, and human dignity.
Her talks inspire leaders, organizations, educators, faith communities, and changemakers to build systems that heal, create pathways of youth mentorship, and pursue violence prevention through community.
VIOLENCE PREVENTION PIONEER
As a nationally recognized violence prevention speaker, Teresa turned a bold vision into Old Skool Café, creating pathways of hope, healing, and opportunity for at-risk youth through jobs, mentorship, and belonging.
SOCIAL
ENTREPRENEUR
Teresa built a nationally recognized youth-run supper club model blending hospitality, workforce development, youth empowerment, and restorative leadership into one transformative experience.
CNN HERO & AWARD WINNING LEADER
Recognized nationally for her impact through features on CNN, Forbes, Oprah’s WW Tour, PBS, ABC, and numerous leadership and community awards, Teresa is a powerful social impact speaker whose work continues to inspire leaders across sectors.
ADVOCATE FOR HUMAN DIGNITY
As a restorative justice speaker, Teresa has dedicated her life to helping young people rediscover purpose, confidence, and family after cycles of violence, incarceration, and instability.
STORYTELLER &SOUL CARE GUIDE
Teresa encourages leaders and changemakers to lead with courage, compassion, renewal, and faith driven leadership through speaking, retreats, mentoring, and deeply human conversations.
As Seen On
As the founder of Old Skool Café, Teresa has become a nationally recognized advocate for restorative justice, youth mentorship, and community transformation. Through her speaking, Teresa shares honest insight into leadership, belonging, prevention, and the power of believing in people before the world gives up on them.
As a community leadership speaker, Teresa equips audiences to rethink how they lead, serve, and create environments where people are seen, valued, and given the opportunity to become who they were created to be.
The Topic: You cannot out-dream God.
The dream was never reserved for the qualified.
Impact begins the moment you take the first step.
Through powerful storytelling, restorative leadership principles, and deeply human insight, Teresa Goines challenges audiences to release the limiting beliefs, labels, and fears that keep them from pursuing the impact they were created to make.
Drawing from her journey founding Old Skool Café and creating violence prevention through community, Teresa inspires leaders to build systems that heal, cultivate belonging, and lead with courageous hope.
As a restorative leadership speaker, Teresa brings together faith, purpose, practical leadership, and lived experience to help audiences imagine what becomes possible when communities choose restoration over rejection.
Key Takeaways
Release the disqualifiers
The things you think should exclude you may become the very foundation of your purpose and impact.
Build systems that heal
Communities change when leaders create environments rooted in dignity, belonging, accountability, and restoration.
Create violence prevention through community
People heal when they are seen, valued, equipped, and connected to something greater than themselves.
Inspire people to believe in larger stories
Transformation happens when people stop seeing themselves through limitation and begin seeing themselves through possibility.
Dream beyond your current reality
Extraordinary impact often begins with one impossible sounding dream and the willingness to take a single step forward.
Redefine leadership through restoration
True leadership is not about control or status. It is about helping people rediscover identity, hope, and possibility.
Turn purpose into practical action
Big vision becomes real through small acts of courage, consistency, faith, and community building.
All speaking engagements start here and can be custom tailored to suit your audience.
More Than a Speaker
Before founding Old Skool Café, Teresa Goines spent years working in juvenile corrections, where she witnessed firsthand how cycles of violence, incarceration, and hopelessness continued long before crisis ever made the headlines. What she discovered changed the course of her life.
Most young people did not need another system reminding them what they lacked.
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They needed belonging.
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They needed dignity.
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They needed mentorship.
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They needed someone willing to see them for who they could become.
That belief became the foundation for Old Skool Café, a nationally recognized youth-run supper club and violence prevention program built on restorative leadership, youth mentorship, meaningful employment, and community.
Today, Teresa speaks to organizations, leaders, educators, faith communities, nonprofits, and changemakers about the power of building systems that heal instead of systems that merely manage brokenness.
As a restorative leadership speaker, social impact speaker, and community leadership speaker, Teresa brings deeply human storytelling, hard-won wisdom, and unforgettable real-life experiences to every stage.
She challenges audiences to release limiting beliefs, rethink leadership, practice building belonging, and recognize the impact they are capable of creating when people are given purpose, opportunity, and community.
Her message is simple, powerful, and deeply needed:
Transformation begins when people are seen for who they can become.
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Whether speaking to corporate leaders, educators, nonprofits, faith communities, or changemakers, Teresa brings warmth, wisdom, humor, and unforgettable storytelling that leaves audiences energized for what comes next.
If you are looking for a restorative leadership speaker, youth empowerment speaker, violence prevention speaker, or faith driven leadership voice for your next event,