February 2, 2017
As many of you know, we are big fans of coffee. I’ve always had the dream of opening up my own coffee shop, but the dream goes beyond just the coffee. What I love about coffee is it brings people together, even if we don’t like coffee, we’re willing to meet at a coffee shop. I envision coffee not just as a product, but a vehicle to grow, foster, and develop both people and community. What does that actually look like? Probably something very similar to what some local social enterprises are doing. ie. Homeboy Industries and 5000 Pies are doing. Go check them out!
Tomorrow night, The Gilmores and the Hoshi’s will be co-hosting a Coffee Collective at the Share & Do Good store in Downtown Fullerton from 6-9pm. Kevin and I will be selling pour-overs, cold brew, and bags of beans to help raise money for our friends at Nozomi Project. Have you heard of them? They make amazing jewelry, but even more so, they have the same vision as we do just a different product. The Tsunami that hit Japan in 2011 took much and left little for many. Spouses, parents, children, homes, jobs, and dignity were lost, but all it takes is hope to find beauty in the brokenness and that’s why Nozomi Project was birthed. Nozomi crafts beautiful pieces of art, but the real beauty is in what Nozomi provides for some of the women in Ishinomaki who were left with little. Here’s an excerpt from their site…
Nozomi, which means ‘hope’ in Japanese, is a social enterprise bringing sustainable income, community, dignity and hope to the women in Ishinomaki, Japan by training them to craft high-quality jewelry products. Nozomi women are creating one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry featuring broken pieces of pottery left in the wake of the tsunami and other up-cycled pottery. Each of our product lines has been named by a Nozomi woman in honor of a loved one in her life.
We have chosen there key words to describe our key values as an organization: community, restoration, and hope. These values are played out in the actual daily work we are doing, in teaming up to make beautiful accessories out of broken pottery. We also experience these values in our daily working relationships and the community aspect of 15 women doing life together.
Check out this first hand look into Nozomi Project:
In order to offer more women in the community an opportunity to participate in the Nozomi Project, they’ll eventually need to find a bigger space as they are already running out of room. Mine and Kevin’s hope is to help jumpstart that expansion, even if it’s just a small push.
Kevin and I will also be introducing ways that you can use coffee to help raise funds for the things you are doing in your own community. Whether you are a student raising funds for your sports team, a church raising funds for a special project, or someone who is looking to raise money for a summer missions trip. Come out and have some freshly brewed coffee from Solid Coffee Roasters, talk about your community, and check out some other great things that Share & Do Good has going on.
Check out the Facebook Event Page here for more info!
See you tomorrow night!
-Micah
P.S. Don’t let rain stop you from coming!
