Thanksgiving Coffee Company

In the early summer months, the Mirembe Kawomera team at Thanksgiving Coffee Co. asked many communities to share their own stories with us. These stories are intended to network communities across America, highlight the uniqueness and diversity of supporting groups, and act as a guide to newly forming organizations. I’m proud to announce our first featured community is Congregation Bet Mishpachah.

“Delicious Peace Grows Here”: Community Profile
Congregation Bet Mishpachah,
Washington, DC

written by Lee Mark Salawitch

Congregation Bet Mishpachah (“Bet Mish”) is a socially conscious, socially active temple of approximately 220 members. Bet Mish was founded over thirty years ago by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Jews. We are an egalitarian, welcoming community. Our congregants hail from all traditions of Judaism, some are Jews by Choice, and we are a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, diverse House of Family.

The Social Action / Social Justice (“SA/SJ”) Committee heard of Delicious Peace or Mirembe Kawomera Coffee (“MKC”) via our esteemed Rabbi Bob Saks. Rabbi Saks had previously purchased MKC from Tiferith Israel Congregation in Washington, DC. Upon learning of the Cooperative at a committee meeting, the SA/SJ immediately saw this as a perfect opportunity to help an extremely worthwhile and inspirational project – a multi-faith cooperative in a country not known for multi-religious cooperation. The project was launched after a proposal was submitted to and approved by the congregation’s Board of Directors.

One of the cornerstones of Bet Mish is the concept of “tikkun olam,” or repairing our fractured world. If by selling a product which so many of us enjoy on a regular basis, coffee, we can assist a community in great need, why wouldn’t we do so? What it means to be part of the Delicious Peace project is that by purchasing MKC, we are able to contribute to the livelihood and improve the well being of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim farmers in one of the poorest countries of the world; that we are able to significantly assist the lives of those whose annual income is less than what many of us make in a week. We can demonstrate the power of cooperation among people of various faiths. Also, as a small amount of the purchase price is donated to Bet Mishpachah, we are also helping our own community via the sales of MKC coffee. Quite simply, we can make a difference.

The SA/SJ Committee has shared information about MKC via an article in the monthly on-line and print congregational newsletter, by a standing order form in the newsletter, with weekly bimah announcements, by members of the committee creating “buzz” about the coffee at onegs and Kiddush lunches, and by the exclusive use of MKC at all synagogue sanctioned events. The official launch of our coffee project was at a very well attended spring “Kosher for Passover” wine tasting event, where two varieties of MKC were served. While we have not done so yet, a terrific way to create interfaith cooperation in our community is to introduce Delicious Peace project coffee to congregations of other faiths. This may happen!

The response so far has been fantastic! Bet Mish places orders every six to eight weeks. I prefer to order over the phone with Holly Moskowitz; it’s a great time to catch up and obtain information about what’s new at Thanksgiving Coffee. The potential for growth is phenomenal: additional members are purchasing coffee with each order, and our print newsletter reaches over 1000 people each month.

My role is as our “Mr. Coffee.” I serve as one of the Board Members at Large on the congregation’s Board of Directors, and I am also a member on the SA/SJ Committee. I communicate with those placing orders, organize and place the orders, and distribute the coffee Friday night before services. All coffee is distributed in black, yellow, and red bags, the colors of the Ugandan flag, and there is a small Ugandan flag printed on the order confirmation forms. A re-order form is enclosed with every order, and, prior to an order being placed, a “reminder to re-order” email is sent to those who have previously placed orders. I am available to discuss the project at Friday night and Saturday morning Shabbat services.

A story about Mirembe Kawomera was in the April 13, 2007, Washington “Jewish Week.”

A very exciting event will occur in October when Aaron Kintu Moses, assistant Rabbi of the Abayudayah Ugandan Jewish community, will be guest speaker at a congregational Shabbat dinner and at Friday night services.

Bet Mish is always looking for ideas to expand the impact of our project, either via a forum or email updates. Yes, I would definitely participate in a forum. The most helpful materials provided by Thanksgiving Coffee Company have been the brochures and dvd. If an organization wishes to launch a coffee program, I would suggest having a coffee tasting event or Ugandan themed event to introduce the coffee to the community. Convince your organization to serve Delicious Peace exclusively. Treat coffee sales the way one might sell Girl Scout cookies or gift wrap – tell friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors about the project and the coffee. And don’t get discouraged if the immediate response is not overwhelming – some projects take longer to percolate than others.

Chicago. The city’s always been kind of an enigma to me. It’s somewhere between rural Indiana and cosmopolitan Manhattan in my imagination. Each time I visit, it’s a discovery of new layers. Now, the discovery of new stratum is beginning to form a coherent, and exciting kind of geology.

Six months ago, our friends at the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation of Evanston invited us to attend the Hamsa Festival with them. Hamsa is a middle-eastern cultural fair, and the JRC wanted to use the event to reach out to other communities of faith in Chicago. I arrived late Friday night to attend the two-day festival. Elaine Waxman (chief ambassador for our efforts with the JRC) picked me up and whisked me to her home, through the last bits of rain from an unusually strong summer storm.

Our work began Saturday morning, as we arrived in time to set up our booth before the noon festival opening. As I carried boxes of coffee over the wet grass of Lincoln Park, I met Miryam Rashid, who works with the American Friends Service Committee, and who was sharing our booth. Miryam coordinates AFSC’s efforts to build a market for Fair Trade Palestinian olive oil, another project which illustrates of the need for economic development in support of people building sustainable livelihoods as a foundation for peace. What a perfect pairing! I thought to myself, as we began to converse with festival attendees…two examples of how fair trade can connect us to peacemaking around the world!

Through the course of the weekend we met a diverse cross-section of Chicago’s community: young and old, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, religious and agnostic. The organizers of the Hamsa Festival certainly succeeded in building a large tent where everyone felt welcome. Conversations flowed, packages sold, and through the course of the two days, we met a handful of dedicated community activists and organizers who are interested in helping us spread the story of delicious peace.

My hope from the weekend? That we would begin to map out the landscape of interfaith collaboration in Chicago, and plant the seeds for a city-wide interfaith campaign modeled after our efforts in San Francisco. We certainly made a number of these connections, and as we packed up the booth on Sunday night, I thought of the farmers in Uganda, and how the story of their work is slowly spreading from place to place, echoing other efforts to build peace, and inspiring new ones. That distant view I once had of Chicago is starting to come into focus, the landscape of interfaith organizing is starting to come together around this project.

Monday morning I met with the Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core, an incredible organization, and powerful center of gravity for the emerging interfaith youth movement. As our work with farmers to build a fair trade movement progresses, we find ourselves walking alongside other efforts. Connected by shared values, we find our paths intersecting. The IFYC is one of those new partners, and I look forward to sharing news from their upcoming national conference, where we’ll be presenting a workshop on fair trade, faith, and interfaith action.

If any of you, our dear readers, have suggestions for likely partners in Chicago, please send them our way.

Stay tuned…