Community Caravan
During the weekend of October 21-22 Tripp and Geoffrey had a blast visiting our friends Earl Drennen, Frances Self Drennen, and crew from Manna Grocery and Deli at the Kentuck Festival in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Outstanding Manna food, cup after cup of Café Campesino coffee, acres of artwork, great bands and wonderful people… no wonder we plan on being there again next year!
On October 29th Bill and Tripp journeyed to Sevananda in Atlanta to join our friends there in celebrating Co-op Month and participate in their coop roundtable luncheon, which was co-sponsored by the good folks of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. Thank you Steve and everyone at Sevananda for your leadership and gracious hospitality.
On November 3, Café Campesino served up piping hot coffee to chilly attendees of the fourth annual Pecan Festival in Americus. The festival was hosted by the Americus-Sumter County Chamber of Commerce and featured a 5K Race, a One-Mile Walk, a parade through downtown Americus, and local musical entertainment at Rylander Park.
Accepting a $25,000 check from the One Georgia Authority Board. L to R: Senator George Hooks, Gov. Sonny Perdue, Tripp Pomeroy and Sam Hunter
On November 10, Tripp traveled to Macon, Georgia with Sam Hunter, Vice President of Sumter Bank & Trust and friend of Café Campesino, to attend a OneGeorgia Authority board meeting. Café Campesino was one of many companies acknowledged for its contribution to Georgia’s economy, in part thanks to the OneGeorgia loan guarantee that enables us to build our new roasting facility and equip it with our 30k big yella Ambex drum roaster. Café Campesino thanks Gov. Sonny Perdue, the OneGeorgia Authority, and Sumter Bank & Trust for their support.
During the weekend of November 16-18, Geoffrey will travel to Ft. Benning in Columbus, GA, to join thousands of students, people of faith and human rights activists in attending the annual vigil at the US Army School of the Americas (SOA). The School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) is a grassroots movement that works to stand in solidarity with the people of Latin America, to close the SOA/WHINSEC and to change what many believe is the oppressive U.S. foreign policy that the SOA represents. This will be the ninth year that Café Campesino serves coffee from Fair Trade farmers in countries that are directly affected by those trained at the school in order to raise funds for SOA Watch. Proceeds from the event will be donated to SOAW. To learn more about SOA Watch visit www.soaw.org.
Café Campesino will be closed on Thursday, November 22 for Thanksgiving. Be sure to get those orders in early to avoid running out of coffee over the weekend! We will reopen on Friday the 23rd.
Introduction: Diggin’ In to Fair Trade
Hot coffee weather has finally made its way down to Americus and it looks like it’s here to stay! We think you’ll agree that temperatures in double, rather than triple, digits — at least until next summer anyway — are worthy of a steaming cup of fairly traded joe. Good timing, too, because in this edition of Fair Grounds we have a lot to cover and a tasty cup of Café Campesino is just the right fuel to get you through it all. Read on for a good hard look at Fair Trade by Bill Harris in his report on our annual Cooperative Coffees meeting in Matagalpa, Nicaragua (from which he, Maty, and Tripp have literally just returned), an e-visit by our good friend Jackie DeCarlo of CRS, who gives us the inside scoop on her recently released book Fair Trade: A Beginner’s Guide, a spotlight on our very good friends at Manna Grocery and Deli in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (who we’ll be teaming up with later this month for their annual Kentuck event in Tuscaloosa!), and a full, exciting calendar of events.
Customer Spotlight: Manna Grocery & Deli
Café Campesino is pleased to feature our friends at Manna Grocery & Deli in this month’s edition of Fair Grounds. Co-owners Frances Self Drennen and Earl Drennen opened Manna in 1980, building a truly extraordinary organic market and deli based on high standards, quality and integrity, elements they consider central to their personal and professional philosophy. At Manna Grocery & Deli you’ll find Café Campesino coffee, delicious natural foods, herbal and vitamin supplements, natural body and skin-care products, items such as handmade Nepalese jewelry for the hard-to-shop-for friend, wind chimes, books on natural cooking, yoga and much more!
Next weekend, October 20th and 21st, Frances and Earl and the rest of the crew from Manna are teaming up with Tripp and Geoffrey to serve Café Campesino coffee at the nationally recognized Kentuck Festival, the Kentuck Museum’s annual celebration of the arts. So if you plan on being in the Tuscaloosa area, be sure to drop in for great coffee and a fun festival — and remember to stop by for a delicious lunch from their deli.
Manna Grocery & Deli is located at 2300 McFarland Boulevard, Suite 12 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Their telephone number is 205-752-9955 or 800-752-9950. To learn more, visit their website at www.mannagrocery.com.
Community Caravan
West and Jesse enjoying CC at the Fair Trade and Our Faith program at St. Patrick's Cathedral
Tripp and his adventurer daughter Maria Sol had a truly extraordinary, life-affirming experience visiting our good friends at Centro de Mujeres de la Esperanza in El Paso, Texas during the weekend of September 8-11. Tripp and Sol arrived in El Paso on Saturday the 8th and without skipping a beat were whisked off for a whirlwind tour of El Paso as well as the border with Ciudad Juarez, (thank you Nikki and West)! On Sunday the 9th, Tripp was one of several speakers who addressed a crowd of about 50 fair traders at St Patrick’s Cathedral. The event, entitled Fair Trade and Our Faith, featured a moving presentation by Fr. Rick Matty, who shared his experiences with the coffee farmers in Chiapas, Mexico, as well as hard-core Fair Trade presentations by our dynamo hosts Nikki Hertel and Joe Michon along with our friends from St. Pius X. The event ended with West Cosgrove, who runs Casa Puente and leads border immersion trips, read the recently approved Declaration to make El Paso a Fair Trade Diocese. The event was sponsored by Centro de Mujeres de la Esperanza, the Peace and Justice Commission of St. Patrick Cathedral, JustFAITH of St. Pius X, the Sacred Earth Ministry of St. Pius X, the Diocesan Peace and Justice Ministry, and Café Campesino.
The wonderful women of Siglo 21, Nikki and Sol learn how to make pinatas.
On Monday, September 10th, Nikki led Tripp and Sol across the bridge into Ciudad Juarez for a visit with the wonderful women of Siglo 21 who are participating in El Centro de Mujeres “Women Learning to Earn Program”. Tripp and Sol were invited to a meeting held by the group which featured a class on how to make piñatas. Queremos agradecer a las mujeres de Siglo 21 por su valiosa hospitalidad.
That evening, Nikki led a meeting with local restaurateurs at El Centro de Mujeres de la Esperanza. Nikki, Tripp, and Rosa Saenz, owner of El Paso’s best and biggest Mexican restaurant Los Banditos de Carlos and Mikey’s (which also happen to serve Café Campesino’s CRS Fair Trade Program coffee —thank you Rosa!), introduced Fair Trade and Café Campesino coffee to this unique gathering of restaurant owners, all of whom seemed extremely interested in adding Fair Trade coffee to their menus!
Tripp, Sol and all of us here at café Campesino want to thank everyone at El Centro de Mujeres de la Esperanza, Joe and Linda Michon, Nikki Hertel, West Cosgrove, and Nikki’s most incredible friends who went out of their way to host Tripp and Sol.
The annual meeting of Cooperative Coffees was held from September 24th through September 30th in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, which provided a simply beautiful setting for this important annual get together! Maty spent the first part of the week meeting and working with fellow roasters and a good number of our producer partners, talking coffee and learning more about the art of cupping, organics and fair trade. Kudos to Dona Maty and Roastmaster Lee… our Sumatra and Peru Full City roasts were selected as tops at an informal cupping by our producer partners and fellow Coop Coffees members during the AGM. (Take advantage of our 10% off offer in this month’s newsletter special to find out for yourself how good these coffees are!) As Maty flew back on the 27th to resume her roasting duties, Tripp and Abby flew in for the Coop Coffees meetings, where the roasters and producers dug in to the business of Cooperative Coffees and the dynamic and evolving world of Fair Trade, which you can read about in Bill’s article The State of Fair Trade: Where We Stand in this issue of Fair Grounds.
Café Campesino would like to thank our friends Geoffrey and J, and all of our friends at BRAG for keeping the coffee flowing at this year’s Georgia Bikefest in Newnan, Georgia.
This past weekend, October 6th-7th, Geoffrey and a very small crew of great folks, served up about a thousand cups of Café Campesino from the Fair Trade Café at this year’s GreenFest in Washington, DC. We’re thrilled to have been part of this great annual “celebration of what’s working in our communities– for people, for businesses and for the environment.” GreenFest is a joint project of Co-op America (of which Café Campesino is a most enthusiastic member) and Global Exchange, that brings together local and national socially responsible businesses, and environmental, social justice and community organizations. Hundreds of thousands of concerned individuals over the years have attended these “parties with a purpose” aimed at forging a just, sustainable, inclusive economy — a green economy. For more information on GreenFest in Washington D.C. and other Green Fests around the country, visit their website.
On October 20th and 21st, Tripp and Geoffrey will be traveling to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to visit our friends Earl and Frances Self Drennen at Manna Grocery and Deli and partner with their crack team to serve up Café Campesino at this year’s Kentuck Festival. The Kentuck Festival, nationally recognized for its quality and diversity, celebrates a variety of artistic styles ranging from folk to contemporary arts as well as traditional crafts. Each of the 250+ artists participating in the Festival is either invited as a guest artist or is juried based on the quality and originality of their work. The guest artists are nationally recognized folk and visionary artists whose powerful visual images continue to capture national and international acclaim. Mose Tolliver, Annie Tolliver Turner, Lonnie Holley, Jimmy Lee Sudduth and Charlie Lucas are among the self-taught artists Kentuck has been honored to showcase.The Festival features educational craft demonstrations where masters of artistic tradition share their skills with Kentuck visitors at locations throughout the park. Some of the talents showcased at Kentuck are the work and practice of southern basketmakers, blacksmiths, furniture makers, quilters and traditional potters. Kentuck also specializes in pleasing the ear and palate. Two stages offer continuous performances of legendary blues, bluegrass, folk, country, gospel, classical and alternative rock, while food vendors serve a variety of delectable fare including ribs, gyros, Cajun and vegetarian. Find out more about the museum and the festival at Kentuck’s website.
Community Caravan
 Gerardo, Marysol, Carolina and friend show us their depulping machine in Narino, Colombia Bill returned from a whirlwind visit to Colombia where he talked coffee and traveled around the country with our friend and Café Campesino cupper Madelyn Madrid. While in Colombia, Bill visited with the marketing office in Bogotá of one of our potentially new producer partners, visited a number of other coffee coops, and even grabbed a bit of time to rest and take in the sights! Welcome home Bill… we’re glad your back! A big thanks to Geoffrey for servin’ up the brew to our BRAG supporters who rode in the inaugural SummerRide in Jasper, Georgia, the weekend of August 25-26. |
 Clifford and Haty Terrell cut the ribbon at their Maxwell AFB clinic cafe as Tripp and friends look on. At far right is Montgomery's Mayor Bobby Bright. We also want to congratulate Clifford Terrell and his team at C&H Variety on their recent ribbon cutting at Maxwell Air Force Base on August 29th, which included Montgomery, Alabama, Mayor Bobby Bright and our very own Tripp Pomeroy. C&H Variety serves up Café Campesino at the base’s clinic and in its college… Fair Trade style! Thank you Clifford and all the folks at Maxwell AFB for your support! |
| Coming soon…
This weekend, September 8th through the 11th, Tripp and his daughter Sol will be journeying to El Paso, Texas, for a Fair Trade open house hosted by our good friends at Centro Mujeres de la Esperanza. This event promises to be a fun and tasty way to get the word out about Café Campesino and our work as Fair Traders, though perhaps more importantly, it’s a great opportunity for Café Campesino to learn first-hand how folks on the front lines of Fair Trade are making it happen… and by the way, Centro de Mujeres is making it happen! Centro Mujeres is a non-profit women’s center that seeks to raise awareness of issues that affect women on the US/Mexico border and give local women a place to come together and share their stories. Check out the June 2007 newsletter for more information on Centro Mujeres!
Here’s maybe the most exciting of our September Community Caravan news: Bill, Tripp, Maty, and Abby will be traveling to Nicaragua at the end of the month for Cooperative Coffees Annual General Meeting (AGM) from September 23rd through October 1st. For Maty, this will be her first time on a few fronts – first AGM, first visit with producers, and first meeting with her peers. This year’s meeting is being hosted by our producer partner in Nicaragua, Cecocafen (to learn more about Cecocafen, click here). Maty and Bill will be arriving in Managua on the 23rd for meetings and visits with producers after which Maty will spend a few days cupping coffee and talking roasting with her colleagues in Coop Coffees. As Maty is flying home on the 27th, Tripp and Abby will be flying down for the core three days of the AGM. Many thanks to Cecocafen for hosting this crazy, caffeinated bunch. GreenFest DC is the first weekend in October! Café Campesino will be serving up the Fair Trade, organic java at this year’s GreenFest in Washington, DC on the weekend of October 6 – 7. Look for Geoffrey, crew, and your coffee fix in the Fair Trade Café on Saturday from 10AM to 8PM and on Sunday from 11AM to 6PM. For more information about this spectacular green event, put together by our friends at Co-op America and Global Exchange, visit the Green Festivals website. |
Customer Spotlight: Manna Grocery & Deli
Café Campesino is pleased to feature our friends at Manna Grocery & Deli in this month’s edition of Fair Grounds. Co-owners Frances Self Drennen and Earle Drennen opened Manna in 1980, building a truly extraordinary organic market and deli based on high standards, quality and integrity, elements they consider central to their personal and professional philosophy. At Manna Grocery & Deli you’ll find Café Campesino coffee, delicious natural foods, herbal and vitamin supplements, natural body and skin-care products, items such as handmade Nepalese jewelry for the hard-to-shop-for friend, windchimes, books on natural cooking, yoga and much more!
From April 25th through Saturday, April 30th, Manna celebrates 25 years of bringing the Tuscaloosa community the best in natural and organic products…all week long, Manna will be offering food demos and giving away food baskets, gift certificates, free lunches and Manna T-Shirts. Tripp and Lee will be at Manna on Saturday April 30th sampling Café Campesino coffee and discussing Fair Trade with Manna’s customers. Given Tuscaloosa’s beauty as a city and the fact that Manna will be hopping with organic activity, it’s worth taking the time to visit if you are in the area…Manna is the ideal place to celebrate all that is green and good! Manna Grocery & Deli is located at 2300 McFarland Boulevard, Suite 12 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Their telephone number is 205-752-9955. To learn more about Manna, visit their website at www.mannagrocery.com.
Community Caravan
This has been a very busy past few weeks…and the next few months promise even more activity on the outreach front for Café Campesino!
During the weekend of January 8-9, Tripp and Lee visited our friends at Phoenix Market in Athens, Georgia and Sevananda Natural Foods Market in Atlanta to sample our coffee and talk about Fair Trade with the markets’ customers. While they were in Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal Constitution ran a fabulous article about Café Campesino and our Fair Trade company…follow this link to read the article.
http://www.cafecampesino.com/
Atlanta_Journal_Jan_9_2005.html
On January 22nd, Tripp and Lee will be traveling to Manna Grocery & Deli in Tuscaloosa to sample our coffee and talk about fair trade with Manna’s customers.
On January 30th, Bill leaves for two months in Guatemala! He will be working hard and playing hard during this extended stay. Mornings will be filled with Spanish lessons and in the afternoon he will occupy a desk in the offices of Manos Campesinas (well, not every afternoon…) Between visits with the cooperatives and Spanish school; a few volcano hikes are planned, a side trip to Chiapas is in the works, and his parents are headed down in March! Stay in touch with Bill via bh(at)gofairtrade.net .
On February 3rd, Tripp will travel to The Sentient Bean to participate in a Sumatra Relief fundraising event at the coffee house’s Savannah locale. The following week, Tripp will be journeying with his six year old son Hugh to visit Bill and our producer partners in Guatemala.
Finally, on February 12-13, while Bill and Tripp are playing in Guatemala, Lee will be representing Café Campesino at the Georgia Organic’s annual meeting on the campus of West Georgia Technical College in Waco, GA. He will be passing out samples of coffee, selling 1 lb. bags and sampling as many of the organic goodies available that time will allow.