The Schultz Family Foundation and Starbucks are committing $3.4 million to launch in other states a well-established Seattle program that trains at-risk youth as baristas to build skills that can land them a job in the retail sector.

The program has its roots in a project started in 2003 by Seattle nonprofits YouthCare, which helps homeless youth, and FareStart, a provider of culinary training to homeless people. Sheri Schultz, wife of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, has been supporting the program, which has graduated more than 500 students, for a decade.

This year the foundation and Starbucks enlisted YouthBuild USA, which runs a national network of programs aimed at low-income youths, to replicate the eight-week program in Gulfport, Miss., and East Harlem, N.Y., using a curriculum prepared by the coffee giant.