Coffee with a Cause I had an idea back in November 2010 while standing in an outrageously long line for coffee from the worlds largest retailer coffee company in the world. While standing there, I was trying to figure out what the hell I really wanted to do with myself, my life. (I was jobless, which was causing me to be partially depressed and without any ideas for my future or anything I might believe I could achieve, until this day back in 2010.)
I've always been a person who's had a passion for helping others as I can always remember my father, when I was a kid, he would always be down to talk to and help another prefect stranger for no apparent reason at all. He'd always be willing to pull over on the side of the highway, if we saw a stranded motorists with their broken down vehicles. I learned at a very young age, on long trips to Nana's house, what it was like to help people without expecting something in return. I never understood why my father did such a thing, until I had the opportunity to do it myself shortly after getting my drivers license in 1988. I then started to learn the great power we have as individuals to make a huge impact on others just by being nice to people because we can be and we should be as my mom would always say "Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself", Thomas! |
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I learned what it was like one fall night to pull over to help and older woman change her tire on the Jamaica Way (Boston). It was rush hour, back in 1999. Its exactly what my father would had done. I learned that this woman had just left her husband at the hospital of 40 years, just long enough to go home and take a shower. Her husband just had quadruple heart bypass surgery 14 hours prior to this unfortunate flat tire on her way home. As I look back l can say this flat tire was meant for me. It taught me once again what we have the power to do just by being kind to one another. I remember this night so well because of that amazing emotions of feeling appreciated. It's what my father had taught me many times on my way to my nana's house to do. But tonight, it was me, and this lady couldn't have been more thankful for my existence. It's formed me into to be the person I am today and my on going growth that has lead me on this amazing journey of finding ways to be of help or service to others.
In 2010 while standing in this seemingly long line for coffee, it dawned on me that coffee was recession proof as it was a time in America when the word "foreclosure" and "going out of business" was the topic of most publicly broadcasted news stations and it didn't seem to have an effect on the lines for coffee. I imagined then that coffee could absolutely be the way to fuel/fund what I liked doing....helping people.
After telling enough people my intentions to open a small coffee shop to help people, I let my then father in-law in on my plans. He just so happened to have a client who had been in the coffee business for 20+ years. He introduced me to Sam and his wife Ju Hi, the owners of Brewed Awakening. Sam and his wife treated me like their son. He handed me everything he had learned in his 20 years. I worked for Sam free to learn what it was like to even work coffee shop to make sure this road I wanted to take and dedicated my future to was something I could see myself doing for how ever long it would take me understand the coffee retail business. I then went on to work at the largest retail coffee shop provider in the world for 5 months. It was there I learned I was capable and ready for my own shop and then I found 45 Bromfield St.. downtown Boston and opened Boston Brewin October 6th, 2011.
From there, I continued to tell everyone of my intentions. I slowly built an awareness around what I was wanting to achieve. I changes and modified any opportunity I saw to be better as the opportunities made themselves available. By December that year, Boston Brewin Organic Coffee customers/the CEO'S of their coffee money made it possible to fund and buy Christmas presents for an 8 year old boy in Lowell and a 13 year old blind girl in Revere who where in foster care. It took me almost a year to bring my dream of owning a coffee shop capability of creating more good in the world from that day back in 2010.
For the next 7 years, I used every opportunity be the best coffee shop in Boston and I was. The fans of Boston Brewin supported and idea and we worked together and purchased a local woman a set of dentures who had been without teeth for a very long time . A neighbor of the Richard family who was the family who lost their son in the tragic Boston Marathon bombing asked me to help them. I am always willing and up for the challenge to find ways to help to the best of my ability. So I told everyone I knew that I wanted to dedicate whole day and give 100% of whatever we could bring in to help the Richard family. I believe we should always do whatever we can to help our Neighbors . Jim's Organic coffee out of Taunton felt the same way. Jim gave us coffee for free, the Haley house in Roxbury gave us three days worth of pastries for free, Maria's in Haverhill gave us free food and came and helped serve customers. That day a girl who worked at b n y Mellon brought in cup cakes she made herself for us to sell. I made them 10 bucks and 1 woman bought them all to bring back to her office. This was a day I will never ever forget. One of the best days of my life because it was exactly what I wanted to do....and I was doing it.
I had a short lease on a make shift coffee shop in the old welfare building in East Boston, 154 Maverick Street. It was there I was introduced to the Donald Mckay school. One of Boston's worst Public Schools just a few blocks from this location. I was asked to donate $50 to buy paper and pencil for the school. Shocked to hear this I started planning on making this coffee shop dedicated to funding what this school needed. I met with principal Jordan who's an amazing principal and came up with a plan to buy one classroom brand new school desks and chairs as the majority of the school desks were made with inkwells in them produced in 1800s. We dedicated a weekend of profit to fund this project. With the use of Facebook and me doing what I do best...telling people what it is I want to do, we became profitable at 9:45am Sunday morning. By 2:30 that afternoon, regenerated $1059.35. This movement was so powerful as we showed the power of community. The power of consumers. Making me realize, "we can do whatever we want as long as we agree on an idea.
I have learning so much more about the coffee industry running a coffee retail business that only any owner operator could ever understand. I learned that the majority of what they call "conventional coffee" is a genetically modified Coffee Bean. This conventional coffee is the world's leader in users of pesticides. Each acre is responsible for the use of 250 pounds now known cancer causing agent. I never sold any other coffee after knowing these facts. I could never sell a subpar Coffee and expect to have people willing to believe in the ideas I come up with, if I'm not consciously trying to be the best in every way.
Because of my efforts I had been a guest speaker at Harvard University business. I've also been a guest speaker at Suffolk University business several times.
After one of these occasions, I was asked if I wouldn't mind being introduced to a man in Africa who's been working on putting people back to work. Through his work he has achieved creating thousands of jobs in the Agro sector of Africa. After an email introduction, Ola (Olawale Rotimi ) flew up to Boston from a conference he had just been a guest speaker at in Washington DC. We hung out for 2 weeks and became brothers of like minded individuals. We started planning ways to work together. As we both know 2 lights shine brighter than one.
We are now working on a project together with the president of Rwanda using Rwanda's coffee production and the U.S. coffee consumption to fund clean water wells, needed to end the need for clean water for half (6.5 million people) of Rwanda's population.
This project will be run by or project manager Estella George. She's a native of Rwanda who specializes in orchestrating the business and funding and building these wells.
We are planning on starting this mission in Boston. As Boston is the smartest place on the planet. With 35 coffee drinking collages in Boston and 114 collages in the surrounding area, we recognize that a good majority of the worlds professors live right here. There are enough coffee drinkers in Boston that can end the need for clean water in a country that's approximately 26,338 sq km only 6,032 sq km bigger than Massachusetts. Just by drinking some of the best known coffee to the continent of Africa.
It's takes many partnerships to make something on a scale this large to happen. UPS has signed on to handle the shipping to be apart of this life changing idea that will have effect on not just the citizens of Rwanda but our hope is to infect the entire world with the idea of drinking coffee that is giving people the absolute right to clean and safe drinking water.
There are many more partnerships to make this happen, including the farmers from Rwanda, a roastry that Paul Kagame has funded as an empowerment to the woman of Rwanda. To Great Lakes shipping who'll handle the individual ordering and packaging to consumers. But most importantly the partnership is the individual coffee drinker. We will begin this project with 15,000 coffee drinkers who're willing to purchase their next pound of coffee from us. Once we have these first 15,000 socially conscious coffee drinkers to secure our first purchase order. We can deliver one clean water well in as little as 4 weeks time that will give 500 people access to clean water for life. There's not one donation needed. Only people who are willing to drink a really good cup of coffee that has the ability to change the world one cup at a time.
The greatest thing about coffee is that it's something that we the entire world drink 1.4 billion cups of coffee on a daily base.
If we added one nickel, just .05cents to each cup, it would be possible for us, as a world of coffee drinkers, to generate $72,222,222.2 million dollars on a daily bases. A clean water well that is capable of giving 500 people access to clean water for life can be built for 8 to 25 grand. Lets say on average $16,000 for the hell of it. Dividing that into $72,222,222.2 gives us a number of 4,513.8 clean water wells we could fund everyday with a nickel. Times that by 500 people a day that would now have access to clean drinking water with each well installed and get 2,256,944.4 million people on a daily bases access to clean drinking water. The world has the power to end the need for clean water in Rwanda in just under 3 days just by choose. If the world of coffee drinkers decided to end the need for clean water in the world of the 660,000,000. It could be funded with just a nickel in 293 days.
The team at Boston Brewin Organic Coffee, Olawale Rotimi Opeyemi(CEO of JR Farms Africa, UPS, Paul Kagame (president of Rwanda), Rwanda Farmers Coffee Company (woman's co-operation coffee roaster), Kurt Ellis (CEO of Great Lakes Fulfillment), and our drillers, are ready for your order.
It will take some time to find correct algorithm to make every aspect of what we do the best it possibly can be. But you can absolutely be positive that our goal is to bring as much good to the world, to bring as much good to as many people and the planet we possibly can through the Unity of coffee drinkers from around the world. If you're down with a pound of the good stuff... Place your order now and never look back.
In 2010 while standing in this seemingly long line for coffee, it dawned on me that coffee was recession proof as it was a time in America when the word "foreclosure" and "going out of business" was the topic of most publicly broadcasted news stations and it didn't seem to have an effect on the lines for coffee. I imagined then that coffee could absolutely be the way to fuel/fund what I liked doing....helping people.
After telling enough people my intentions to open a small coffee shop to help people, I let my then father in-law in on my plans. He just so happened to have a client who had been in the coffee business for 20+ years. He introduced me to Sam and his wife Ju Hi, the owners of Brewed Awakening. Sam and his wife treated me like their son. He handed me everything he had learned in his 20 years. I worked for Sam free to learn what it was like to even work coffee shop to make sure this road I wanted to take and dedicated my future to was something I could see myself doing for how ever long it would take me understand the coffee retail business. I then went on to work at the largest retail coffee shop provider in the world for 5 months. It was there I learned I was capable and ready for my own shop and then I found 45 Bromfield St.. downtown Boston and opened Boston Brewin October 6th, 2011.
From there, I continued to tell everyone of my intentions. I slowly built an awareness around what I was wanting to achieve. I changes and modified any opportunity I saw to be better as the opportunities made themselves available. By December that year, Boston Brewin Organic Coffee customers/the CEO'S of their coffee money made it possible to fund and buy Christmas presents for an 8 year old boy in Lowell and a 13 year old blind girl in Revere who where in foster care. It took me almost a year to bring my dream of owning a coffee shop capability of creating more good in the world from that day back in 2010.
For the next 7 years, I used every opportunity be the best coffee shop in Boston and I was. The fans of Boston Brewin supported and idea and we worked together and purchased a local woman a set of dentures who had been without teeth for a very long time . A neighbor of the Richard family who was the family who lost their son in the tragic Boston Marathon bombing asked me to help them. I am always willing and up for the challenge to find ways to help to the best of my ability. So I told everyone I knew that I wanted to dedicate whole day and give 100% of whatever we could bring in to help the Richard family. I believe we should always do whatever we can to help our Neighbors . Jim's Organic coffee out of Taunton felt the same way. Jim gave us coffee for free, the Haley house in Roxbury gave us three days worth of pastries for free, Maria's in Haverhill gave us free food and came and helped serve customers. That day a girl who worked at b n y Mellon brought in cup cakes she made herself for us to sell. I made them 10 bucks and 1 woman bought them all to bring back to her office. This was a day I will never ever forget. One of the best days of my life because it was exactly what I wanted to do....and I was doing it.
I had a short lease on a make shift coffee shop in the old welfare building in East Boston, 154 Maverick Street. It was there I was introduced to the Donald Mckay school. One of Boston's worst Public Schools just a few blocks from this location. I was asked to donate $50 to buy paper and pencil for the school. Shocked to hear this I started planning on making this coffee shop dedicated to funding what this school needed. I met with principal Jordan who's an amazing principal and came up with a plan to buy one classroom brand new school desks and chairs as the majority of the school desks were made with inkwells in them produced in 1800s. We dedicated a weekend of profit to fund this project. With the use of Facebook and me doing what I do best...telling people what it is I want to do, we became profitable at 9:45am Sunday morning. By 2:30 that afternoon, regenerated $1059.35. This movement was so powerful as we showed the power of community. The power of consumers. Making me realize, "we can do whatever we want as long as we agree on an idea.
I have learning so much more about the coffee industry running a coffee retail business that only any owner operator could ever understand. I learned that the majority of what they call "conventional coffee" is a genetically modified Coffee Bean. This conventional coffee is the world's leader in users of pesticides. Each acre is responsible for the use of 250 pounds now known cancer causing agent. I never sold any other coffee after knowing these facts. I could never sell a subpar Coffee and expect to have people willing to believe in the ideas I come up with, if I'm not consciously trying to be the best in every way.
Because of my efforts I had been a guest speaker at Harvard University business. I've also been a guest speaker at Suffolk University business several times.
After one of these occasions, I was asked if I wouldn't mind being introduced to a man in Africa who's been working on putting people back to work. Through his work he has achieved creating thousands of jobs in the Agro sector of Africa. After an email introduction, Ola (Olawale Rotimi ) flew up to Boston from a conference he had just been a guest speaker at in Washington DC. We hung out for 2 weeks and became brothers of like minded individuals. We started planning ways to work together. As we both know 2 lights shine brighter than one.
We are now working on a project together with the president of Rwanda using Rwanda's coffee production and the U.S. coffee consumption to fund clean water wells, needed to end the need for clean water for half (6.5 million people) of Rwanda's population.
This project will be run by or project manager Estella George. She's a native of Rwanda who specializes in orchestrating the business and funding and building these wells.
We are planning on starting this mission in Boston. As Boston is the smartest place on the planet. With 35 coffee drinking collages in Boston and 114 collages in the surrounding area, we recognize that a good majority of the worlds professors live right here. There are enough coffee drinkers in Boston that can end the need for clean water in a country that's approximately 26,338 sq km only 6,032 sq km bigger than Massachusetts. Just by drinking some of the best known coffee to the continent of Africa.
It's takes many partnerships to make something on a scale this large to happen. UPS has signed on to handle the shipping to be apart of this life changing idea that will have effect on not just the citizens of Rwanda but our hope is to infect the entire world with the idea of drinking coffee that is giving people the absolute right to clean and safe drinking water.
There are many more partnerships to make this happen, including the farmers from Rwanda, a roastry that Paul Kagame has funded as an empowerment to the woman of Rwanda. To Great Lakes shipping who'll handle the individual ordering and packaging to consumers. But most importantly the partnership is the individual coffee drinker. We will begin this project with 15,000 coffee drinkers who're willing to purchase their next pound of coffee from us. Once we have these first 15,000 socially conscious coffee drinkers to secure our first purchase order. We can deliver one clean water well in as little as 4 weeks time that will give 500 people access to clean water for life. There's not one donation needed. Only people who are willing to drink a really good cup of coffee that has the ability to change the world one cup at a time.
The greatest thing about coffee is that it's something that we the entire world drink 1.4 billion cups of coffee on a daily base.
If we added one nickel, just .05cents to each cup, it would be possible for us, as a world of coffee drinkers, to generate $72,222,222.2 million dollars on a daily bases. A clean water well that is capable of giving 500 people access to clean water for life can be built for 8 to 25 grand. Lets say on average $16,000 for the hell of it. Dividing that into $72,222,222.2 gives us a number of 4,513.8 clean water wells we could fund everyday with a nickel. Times that by 500 people a day that would now have access to clean drinking water with each well installed and get 2,256,944.4 million people on a daily bases access to clean drinking water. The world has the power to end the need for clean water in Rwanda in just under 3 days just by choose. If the world of coffee drinkers decided to end the need for clean water in the world of the 660,000,000. It could be funded with just a nickel in 293 days.
The team at Boston Brewin Organic Coffee, Olawale Rotimi Opeyemi(CEO of JR Farms Africa, UPS, Paul Kagame (president of Rwanda), Rwanda Farmers Coffee Company (woman's co-operation coffee roaster), Kurt Ellis (CEO of Great Lakes Fulfillment), and our drillers, are ready for your order.
It will take some time to find correct algorithm to make every aspect of what we do the best it possibly can be. But you can absolutely be positive that our goal is to bring as much good to the world, to bring as much good to as many people and the planet we possibly can through the Unity of coffee drinkers from around the world. If you're down with a pound of the good stuff... Place your order now and never look back.
