Thanksgiving Coffee Company

Fair Trade mandates that 5 cents of every pound should be dedicated by the producing cooperative to community development. Today I visited Nankusi Elementary school, the local public school, where the cooperative recently provided funds for renovation of the building, and supplements to government-funded staff salaries. It’s absolutely incredible to see that the Cooperative is moving beyond serving only its members, and into a strong social and philanthropic organization in it community—but what’s even more incredible is the connection between the two: the students who attend this school are the children of the members of Peace Kawomera. Peace Kawomera helps to support the school, but it’s the income farmers make from their coffee sales that enables them to pay for their school fees, uniforms, and books. So, this picture of Nankusi Elementary School class P5 (fifth grade), is a picture of fair trade at work in a farming community. This, I think, is what fair trade looks like.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Coming soon, from the 705 farmers of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative, beautiful organic vanilla.

Today we visited four of Peace Kawomera’s three-dozen vanilla farmers, and developed a strategic plan to prepare and export the Cooperative’s first vanilla harvest. Ten years ago vanilla was the only thing going for some of these farmers. Coffee prices had plummeted, and vanilla prices jumped following the destruction of Madagascar’s crop in 2000-2001. But four years ago, vanilla prices dropped, and then dropped some more, and they haven’t recovered since. There are a number of reasons, one being that many food companies now use synthetic vanilla, and the other, of course, is that just like coffee, farmers often times receive only a fraction of the price that’s actually paid on the world market. This is where fair trade comes in, and creates an opening for farmers to capture the value of their crops.

We’ll be importing 250 lbs of cured vanilla beans, which should arrive by August ‘08. While the cooperative is still working out the costing for this piece of their business, it looks like the farmers will receive nearly what they made a decade ago—good news indeed, as they look to diversify their business, and build off the gains they’ve made from coffee.

See below for a few photos of Charles Nagimesi, one of the Cooperative’s vanilla farmers, as he pollinates the vanilla orchid flower, one-by-one.

MUSIC, SPIRIT, IDENTITY

Young Jews from Fort Bragg to Uganda gather

Lisa Alcalay Klug, Special to The Chronicle

Sunday, March 18, 2007

When J.J. Keki began leading classic Hebrew songs at a traditional Jewish Sabbath meal in Long Beach last weekend, his 400 lunch companions were transfixed. An African Jew and Grammy-nominated musician, Keki attended Jewlicious 3.0 @ the Beach, self-described as the largest Jewish youth festival. And whether he was singing or discussing his work directing the fair trade Mirembe Kawomera Cooperative for Jewish, Christian and Muslim coffee farmers in his homeland, Uganda, Keki had found his audience.

“I use singing and coffee to promote peace,” said Keki, a member of the Abuyudaya community in Uganda, whose ancestors converted to Judaism in the early 20th century. “Today, the world is in pain. We want to prove that a better way is to be proud of who you are, respect each other and make something great together. That is my work.”

It is also the work of the Thanksgiving Coffee Co. of Fort Bragg, which partners with Mirembe Kawomera (”Delicious Peace”) to bring its product to American synagogues, churches, mosques, youth groups and other grassroots organizations, including the San Francisco Interfaith Council.

Two representatives of Thanksgiving Coffee, Ben Corey-Moran and Holly Moskowitz, joined Keki and more than 30 Northern Californians at the Alpert Jewish Community Center for the third annual Jewlicious Festival.

Designed as an exploration of Jewish culture, innovation and spirituality, organizers call it “a celebration of “Jewnity: part music festival, part spiritual gathering, part international youth conference and totally unlike any other weekend in human history.”

“Young Jews are seeking unity, spirituality and new ways to celebrate their identity,” says Festival Director Rabbi Yonah Bookstein, whose mother lives in Berkeley. “Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Bu-Jews (Jewish Buddhists), feminists, Democrats, Republicans, agnostics, anarchists … anyone with any connection to this tribe of wandering, creative, passionate and uniquely Jewlicious people belongs at this festival.”

Indeed, the annual gathering attracts Jews from every denomination and political affiliation for 60 hours of workshops, festive meals, conference sessions, concerts and other expressions of Jewish creativity and vitality. From its beginnings in 2005, the Jewlicious Festival has grown from 100 attendees to more than 350 participants and some 30 volunteers and several dozen presenters who work in a variety of fields, from Hollywood screenwriting to activists working to stop the genocide in Darfur.

“We believe with all our soul and all our might in creating unifying events to celebrate Jewishness,” says Rachel Bookstein, a graduate of UC Santa Cruz who grew up in San Anselmo and Fairfax. The wife of Yonah Bookstein, she serves as director of Beach Hillel, which locally hosts and co-produces the event. “We are committed to celebrating life and diversity, learning from different people and experiencing different things that enrich and fulfill our Jewish lives.”

Participants from more than 40 colleges and universities were represented, including several score from Sonoma State University who made the trip together with local young professionals like Tomer Altman. The founder of an extensive online resource, Altman teamed up with Sonoma Hillel to contract the bus. After attending Jewlicious 2.0 last year, Altman was inspired to create his blog, Oy Bay, the Jewish Blog-by-the-Bay. “I had such a great time last year that I had to come again,” Altman said.

Other Bay Area attendees included musician Ayal Nistor, who recently relocated to San Francisco from Tel Aviv. His one-man band, A Second Surprise, performed Sunday night, and was just one among an extensive lineup of artists appearing at two peak Jewlicious elements, the Saturday and Sunday night concerts. Both shows were packaged in the festival’s student ticket price of $36, and $54 for nonstudents younger than 27. The cost includes indoor, sleeping-bag-friendly space to crash for several nights, generous kosher meals and snacks and nearly all-night programming.

The concert lineup featured cutting-edge special guests, klezmer-punk band Golem and New York folk-rocker Rav Shmuel, who teamed up with dance-fusion band the Bloodsugars to perform his signature song, “Protocols,” a spoof of anti-Semitism that appears in an animated video on MySpace.com and YouTube. Additional performers included actor-rapper-comedian Smooth E, Israeli indie band missFlag, the unique sounds of Tel Aviv-based Soulico Crew, Jewish heavy metal rockers the Makkabees, Rabbi Bookstein’s own Shankbone and DJ Eric Rosen & the Twelve Tribes Live Percussion Ensemble.

The festival grew out of the of the popular blog Jewlicious.com.

“The ultimate point of the Jewish Internet is to nurture and inspire Jewish life in the real world,” says Jewlicious.com’s co-founder, Laya Millman, a writer and photographer who lives in Israel and flew in for the festival. “Through the Jewlicious/Beach Hillel partnership, we’ve all been able to translate online inspiration into a high-impact, real-life experience. The energy is intoxicating.”

Cecile Merrin, 18, a junior majoring in business accounting and financial economics at Sonoma State and a first-time attendee, agreed. “I like the diversity, because (I haven’t met) any students who are Orthodox at Sonoma State. And I really like all the people I met.”

As a result of the conversations she enjoyed over the weekend, Merrin is resolute about her plan to join Birthright Israel, a free trip to the Holy Land for young Jewish adults. “I heard what a life-changing experience it was, and I really want to go and see what it does for me in terms of my Jewish identity and my faith.”

Her classmate Jordan Speizer, 20, a music major from Napa, is also considering a future Birthright trip. He also plans to return to Long Beach for Jewlicious 4.0. “Three hundred Jews in one room is an experience. If you’ve never experienced it before, it’s hard to explain, but there’s a contagious energy. It’s hard not to be uplifted, especially for someone who went to high school with one or two other Jews.”

For Keki and his Fort Bragg colleagues, it is this dynamism they are looking to attract. As Corey-Moran explained, “These are people who want to be a part of this project, and that for us is the market we’re trying to connect with: young people, inspired, motivated and pursuing social justice. Our purpose in coming to Jewlicious is to share this beautiful story and meet these wonderful people and invite them to become part of our work.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/18/LVG5SOMDRM1.DTL

I’m now speaking to my people, who read this blog. For those people who took care of me here, who received me here, that I have had a wonderful time here. Talking to people who are very welcoming, and who are responding positively. I only request that those friends who we met from interfaith, fair trade, and others, to remain friends, to be bound to what we reached out with, so that it becomes a reality, our dream of bringing peace in the world. That you would now become good ambassaders for promoting peace in the world. That is it.

We have sown the seeds, and I request that these seeds be multiplied by you who have received them, so that they can be spread to every corner of the world. This is what we are seeking.

The relationship between us has been very good, and I only pray that this relationship goes forward, from strength to strength. So that our seeds grow ever more fertile, so that we have, like our coffee, healthy, productive, and beautiful blossoming, so that we yield many sweet fruits for our children.

Thank you, I would invite everbody, all of my friends to come and witness, and not only to witness, but by visiting to encourage our cooperation and our efforts. Goodbye. Be well,

Yours,

J J

The chairman waves goodbye. San Francisco International Airport, March 14, 2007.

by Paul Katzeff, Co-founder and CEO, Thanksgiving Coffee Co.

You throw a party and wonder…will anyone come? Well Town Hall was packed and no one was disappointed . Ft. Bragg’s Town Hall is on Main Street in the center of town. It has been there for 100 years and the site of citizens fighting government and government consultants for decades. When the hippies came in the early 70’s the town devided along class lines. Old timers vs. Urban youth , loggers vs. Environmentalists, and no growthers vs. the real estate pro growth lobby. City Hall has not been a place of peace in all the years that I have been here. But on March 7th it was very different. People came to hear first hand about peace in a far away place . They came to learn how JJ Keki got Jews, Muslims and Christians together to build a better life in their shared community.

The peace movement activists came, the interfaith people came, and our friends came to the party . We did our “dog and pony show” for about 90 minutes. I sat so I could see the audience of about 85 people (2 % of the local populous). They were mesmerized by the concept which I framed as “The Greatest Coffee Story Ever Told”. I was surprised at a spontaneous applause that happenned when at the evenings close I reminded people that this beautiful story was nothing but a story until the Mirembe Kawomera Cooperative sold enough coffee to become sustainable and that peace and economic justice were intimately related . “We are fund raisers for this revolution of peace and that is a noble cause…to sell coffee so peace can reign” I said. ” Hope breeds determination and we have enabled hope to exist in their community and they are determined because we are on their team and also determined to show that interfaith cooperation coupled with economic development can lead to a better life for all. JJ became living proof of this possibility and the people who came to our party felt it and loved the feeling.