Last month, we partnered with Carrotmob to raise support for a new sustainability project: shipping coffee on sailing ships from Nicaragua and Peru into Fort Bragg’s Noyo Harbor.
Shipping coffee – to be continued…
We had an ambitious goal: sell $150,000 worth of coffee in just 20 days. While we didn’t make it to our goal, we have been overwhelmed with your support for shipping coffee by wind. With your support, we raised over $31,000 through our partnership with Carrotmob – about 20% of our goal. Even though this first attempt didn’t produce enough funding to further our feasibility study to sail coffee – we’re committed to moving forward with the idea.
With Noyo Harbor right in our backyard, shipping coffee and other goods is a tremendous economic opportunity for our community in Fort Bragg, California that we’d like to explore further.This was our first attempt to break the ice around this idea, and in the months ahead, we’ll be determining the next steps to further this project.
What about the money raised?
Thanksgiving’s Ben Corey-Moran meets with Peace Kawomera’s Board of Directors. Photo: jemglo.org, 2008
Per our agreement with Carrotmob, we’ll be sending 15% of the funds raised in the buycott (about $4,095) to our associated non-profit organization, The Resilience Fund, which will use the money for a project in Mbale, Uganda.
That’s where the Peace Kawomera Cooperative is, which has been a partner of Thanksgiving Coffee since 2004. It’s a co-op of Jewish, Christian and Muslim coffee farmers who came together to build peace through economic development.
You might recognize the name from our online store, where we offer as light roast, dark roast and decaf coffees from this cooperative.
Nathan Watandena, showing land that was once densely forested. Photo: Ben Corey-Moran, 2008.
The cooperative has an existing climate change adaption project funded by a Dutch NGO, Progreso, that is addressing this challenge by bringing farmers together to plant trees and re-forest the area.
This effort is improving the sustainability of their coffee crops and ensuring the availability of resources vital to the community. We’re committed to supporting this important work – and the Carrotmob funds will be put to work immediately for a new project that builds on this work.
With the approximately $4,600 raised in the Carrotmob buycott, The Resilience Fund will purchase clean, efficient cookstoves for about 70 families that are a part of the cooperative. This will reduce their dependency on local forest resources and improve indoor air quality. The Resilience Fund will continue to raise funds to support this project.
While we didn’t meet our goal of $150k, our experience partnering with Carrotmob, its supporters and our customers has been exciting. The Carrotmob has huge potential to create lasting change, and in fact, already has. Thank you so much for your support!