I read a blog this morning about an interesting fundraising strategy being used in a coffee shop in Melbourne, Australia. I haven’t been able to find the shop that is doing this, but here’s the blog. The coffee shop gives patrons a card to let them know when their orders are ready. When the patron returns, the shop has a variety of trays where patrons can return the card. Each tray lists a non-profit or effort that the coffee shop supports. The patron returns the card to one of the trays when they pick up their order and the coffee shop donates the proceeds from that order to the indicated non-profit.
Take a look at the blog if you get a chance. Seems a pretty clever idea.
Coffee Kids is proud to announce that our 20th Anniversary Dinner celebration raised nearly $100,000. Over 240 people attended the event held May 3 during the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Conference & Exhibition in Minneapolis, Minn.
Representatives from Longbottom Coffee and Tea, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Foundation, DaVinci Gourmet and Putumayo World Music made presentations on the importance of helping to ensure an improved quality of life for coffee-farming families. Luca Mundaca, a Putumayo recording artist, performed at the event.
Retiring Founder Bill Fishbein was honored by representatives from CECOCAFEN, a Coffee Kids partner in Nicaragua working in education and microfinance. In a heartfelt tribute CECOCAFEN established the Bill Fishbein Medal of Academic Excellence. The medal will be given to one outstanding student each year and will cover the costs of the student’s continuing education.
The celebration dinner also featured the screening of a new film on Coffee Kids’ impact produced by Machine Hero, a communication arts company based in Providence, R.I. The video can be seen on our blog. To see pictures from the dinner, check out our Flickr page.
Money raised at the celebration will be used to help Coffee Kids’ partners continue their efforts in coffee-farming communities in Latin America. Coffee Kids’ 12 partners work in economic diversification, health care, education and other community-based programs that help improve quality of life for coffee-farming families and reduce their reliance on the coffee crop.
Special thanks go to all of our supporters and sponsors who made this event possible.
Carlos Murrillo is the president and founder of Expocert and worked with Bill Fishbein and Coffee Kids to create the scholarship program Fundacion Hijos del Campo in Costa Rica in 1995. In this entry, he talks about working with Bill Fishbein and Coffee Kids to develop the foundation that has provided thousands of Costa Rican students with educational support and hope for a brighter future.
“We first spoke to Bill Fishbein in 1993 and we discussed rural development, corporate responsibility in the coffee industry and the coffee-growing regions.
“It resulted in us inviting Bill and Coffee Kids to Costa Rica. It was in a meeting with Bill that we institutionalized the scholarship program Fundacion Hijos del Campo (FHC). Before that it was just a program funded by outside groups, but with Bill’s suggestion and Coffee Kids help it became something more formal with a bigger budget and strong programs.
“Bill is someone you can dream with, but he’s also someone you can work with to make those dreams come true.”
We had a great time at the 2008 Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Conference and Exhibition in Minneapolis, Minn. Check out our Flickr page for images from the weekend. The 20th Anniversary Celebration Dinner went well with almost 300 new and old supporters and members joining us to celebrate 20 years of Coffee Kids and Founder Bill Fishbein’s retirement.
CoffeeGeek.com featured a couple blog posts on our events and our booth.
Coffee Kids was delighted to be able to present at the keynote address at the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s (SCAA) Conference and Exhibition.
In honor of our 20th Anniversary, Coffee Kids would like to thank all of our members, partners and sponsors throughout the world who have helped make it possible. We recently completed this video with the help of Machine Hero, a Providence, R.I.-based firm. It features images from our partners in Latin America and interviews with a number of our long term supporters and friends. The video explores Coffee Kids effect in the global coffee community and how support for Coffee Kids translates to support for the long term future of the specialty coffee industry.
Please leave comments on the video below and thanks for making our first two decades rewarding and fruitful!
If you are attending the SCAA Conference in Minneapolis, be sure to visit us at our booth #1241 and learn how your contributions are making a difference and if you can’t make the conference, check out our Web site to learn more about our work.
Representatives from Longbottom Coffee and Tea, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Foundation, DaVinci Gourmet and Putumayo World Music made presentations on the importance of helping to ensure an improved quality of life for coffee-farming families. 
“We first spoke to Bill Fishbein in 1993 and we discussed rural development, corporate responsibility in the coffee industry and the coffee-growing regions.
The 20th Anniversary Celebration Dinner went well with almost 300 new and old supporters and members joining us to celebrate 20 years of Coffee Kids and Founder Bill Fishbein’s retirement.