Appendix E-J

So…

Since we heard of The Great Pennsylvania Car Fire and it’s wrath upon the gear and other things of Candy Claws, we’ve been working behind these scenes to figure out good ways to help the Candies get back on their feet. The results are as follows:

• This coming Friday (7.16), 50% of sales will be donated to Candy Claws. The insurance co. is not covering the loss, so we must do our part. If you can’t make it in to buy things, you can donate here.
• Second – come August 13, we will host a benefit concert for the band featuring Candy Claws themselves, Ocean Floor, and Holly Faml’y. There will be a minimum $5 cover charge to get in. You can always give more.

Therefore, we will see you on Friday when you buy things to support the boys and girls victimized by the Great Pennsylvania Car Fire. In the meantime, enjoy the nice pre-car fire video below from Candy Claws’ show in Boston…thanks thanks to the Foundwaves blog for that. Plus, you might see an Everyday Joe’s shirt pop up on stage.

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99.99% of the time, the folks who volunteer at Everyday Joe’s are here because their heart desires to take care of people. When they move on from behind the bar or soundboard, it is not because their heart has changed but because it is being called to other places.

Rachel Robichaux is a good lady/Everyday Joe’s volunteer. Her heart has taken her & her camera to India as of late, where she has found herself in love with/heart-broken by the women of the Devadasi system – “in which girls are dedicated to the goddess Yellamma for a lifetime of ritualized prostitution.”

Injustice exists all over the planet earth. Rachel is helping to fight this particular injustice. She has a short essay & photo collection up on JPG Magazine’s site. If her piece receives enough votes, it will be featured in the print edition of JPG. Please head over, vote, and help spread the word of something that needs to be squelched.

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Would you like to see the beginnings of something? Here you go:

Over the past year, we have been forcing ourselves to think more creatively about the idea of being non-profit. One manifestation of forced creativity are our Coffee & Goodness events. They are great and we have one in development we will announce very soon.

Another manifestation that we are very excited about are Benefit Beverages. The Dickens Chocolatte was the first of these – with all profits going to CoCOA: The Colorado Coalition Of Artists.

The time has now come for a second beverage which is near and dear to our hearts…and delicious.

A couple months ago – as part of our Other People’s Coffee series – we profiled Sola Coffee Bar in Scottsdale, AZ. It is non-profit. It is volunteer powered. It is a place of relationship. It is run by people we sat and talked with when it was just a hope in their hearts. It is in the desert.

You know what else is in the desert? Agave.

The picture of beginnings up there is the beginnings of the Sola Agave Latte – our next Benefit Beverage. Just a bit of agave nectar goes a long way. We find that when it is factored into a latte, it is astoundingly tasty. And when all the profits from the drink go to Sola Coffee Bar, it tastes even better.

We now encourage you to come in and enjoy. The Sola Agave Latte will be available for a limited time. Try it hot. Try it iced. Try it for your mother.

FURTHER:

• Other People’s Coffee: Sola Coffee Bar
• Sola Coffee Bar official site

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Last night, We headed down to Irvine for good burgers and a lecture sponsored by the Veritas Forum. The man speaking was an impressive man – the founder of Not For Sale amongst other things.

The lecture was good. It was nice to be in a lecture hall again, as odd as that sounds. Ben ran into a fellow he knows from a summer job. Many good things were said, but one particularly rang true with Everyday Joe’s:

“We are all created uniquely and with gifts. We must use those gifts to serve others.”

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We’ve talked about coffee brewing methods here before (please refer to this and this). Various brew methods result in various delicious results. It’s a fun time.

Back in September we thought, “We want to host coffee tastings.” Then we thought, “These tastings need to be about more than coffee.” One last thought occured, “The tastings should benefit people doing good things.”

And so those thoughts formed one larger thought that was acted on and out came Coffee & Goodness. It is an afternoon of coffee exploration to benefit good things. The upcoming Coffee & Goodness (Saturday March 6) will benefit the Fort Collins Food Co-Op. We will be exploring a coffee from Ethiopia: Amaro Gayo Sun-Dried. It will be explored 4 different ways:

• Hario V60 Drip
• Clever Coffee Dripper
• French Press
• Espresso

The doors are open from 2-5 pm. Come by any time during those hours and receive 6 oz. samples of Hario, Clever, and French Press and a double shot of the espresso. You can tell us things, we can tell you things, we can exlpore the flavor wheel, we can draw pictures…all for just $7.

PLUS, our good friends at Novo Coffee have generously and graciously and lovingly donated all the beans, so nearly all of that $7 will go directly to the FC Food Co-Op. Prolific!

See you then.

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We don’t get spiritual in this sliver of cyberspace too often, but these are good things to consider regardless of your beliefs concerning beliefs.

Speaking Of Faith is a fine show on public radio that has had input concerning the way certain things are done around Everyday Joe’s. The show and the people of the show don’t  know this, of course. Methinks they have input many places. Host Krista Tippett spoke at First United Methodist back in the fall. Several of us went and it was wonderful. There is an amusing story that came out of the evening, but we’ll get to that some other time.

The staff of SOF maintain a Twitter account (@softweets). Today it produced this tweet:

40 Days 40 Deeds: a project “to be kinder, to give more, to inconvenience” + “make the world a more pleasant place.”

This sounded so lovely to my heart, I clicked on the provided link and was taken to a post son the SOF blog SOF Observed. From there, my clicking intrigue took me to another post on Observed and to an entirely different blog, 40days40deeds. It was a lot of work for my clicking finger, but it was worth it.

The “other post” on Observed is actually titled “A Is For Alleluia.” It marks the beginning of the Lenten season, and the Irish writer marked my heart with the statement:

Lent is less for giving up, and more for making space.

40days40deeds is a project of sorts, centered on Lent and the hearts of 4 folks across the U.S.

40 Days 40 Deeds is a project created by a small group of people in various U.S. cities who have pledged to make small changes throughout the 2010 Lenten season to encourage people to be kinder, to give more, to inconvenience themselves a little to make the world a more pleasant place to be.

Those are sentiments of sacrifice and service…things at the core of Everyday Joe’s. The volunteers of Everyday Joe’s…those are the things their hearts beat for. Please know that.

It has been said here lately that what Everyday Joe’s IS must not stay at Everyday Joe’s. By reading this, you take part in this place. If you come in, you take part in this place. By being a human being, you take part in this place, because this place is part of a much larger thing. We are all in it.

Everyday Joe’s wants to make space for things of love and goodness to occur. We want to make changes that provide space. The best part is, we can all do this each day all the time. Perhaps a new habit can be formed over fourty days…a habit that makes the places we are a part of more pleasant places to be. A habit that makes space for pleasantries to occur. Then we can be thankful.

Please take a moment to read those posts/blogs. Comment if you please, or come in and say hello.

FURTHER:

• Follow Speaking Of Faith on Twitter
• A Is For Alleluia
• 40days40deeds

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There are rumblings of the Mountain Regional Barista Competition happening in Northern Colorado next month. This has the majority of us excited. It had me daydreaming the other day as I drove down College Avenue. It had me thinking to much about coffee and not enough about people. I stopped at a light and looked at the people in another coffee shop and something quivered in my being. The reality of people. At another light, someone protesting something was talking and smiling with a young fellow who appeared extremely excited to get somewhere, as his feet wouldn’t stop moving though he stood in place. More quivers.

About this same time people in Haiti were experiencing a natural disaster. People were being buried in rubble. The earth was changing at a very rapid rate all around them. I have beliefs about these quivers I felt & we can talk about them sometime if you like…but for now it is just safe to say that earthquakes are bigger than coffee. The world is huge and we are not as big as we might think we are. But we need to take care of each other and love each other. Methinks those are part of each other.

Love people here. The people next to you. But love the people in Haiti. If you pray, pray for them please. If you have the desire, go to Haiti. If you have the means, give to Haiti. We’re not as small as we may think we are.

FURTHER:

• Avatar For Haiti
• Oxfam

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If you were at the 2009 Everyday Joe’s 90/10 benefit, that card there might just mean something to you. It does to me. I keep it in my wallet.

The cards were distributed to those in attendance by one Mr. Todd Fadel of the musical superiors Agents Of Future. The cards & their suits corresponded with a certain percussive action. Before long, the audience was the backing band for the Agents, and images were being drawn on an overhead projector by those feeling the need, and dancing was happening by those who couldn’t contain it anymore.

“Come exist with me,” Mr. Fadel invited from the stage. “This is where I exist, where I am a child.”

This invitation is also the heart behind Love Is Concrete, a beautiful online community Todd has created for all of us. Folks have taken notice, including the people at Sojourner’s magazine. They recently interviewed our friend and it is a beautiful read. Go ahead and see for yourself, then join Love Is Concrete.

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Direct Trade coffee is important. We should all drink it this new year…but what is it? Oh, here you go:

1. The best way to get an exceptional cup of coffee, comes from knowing the hands that work on the farm.
2. Understanding the growers, plants, sites, sounds, smells and culture of each region, we can ensure that our coffee is not blindly accepted as fair or sustainable.
3. A commitment to frequent communication with our growers, giving each of us a voice in the bigger than business transaction of life and economies.

You’ve already started on this resolution…did you know that? Just by drinking at Everyday Joe’s.

But what about at your home? In your kitchen…on your deck…at your desk…on the front porch…looking out the window…in good company.

You could always buy the beans of Novo Coffee from Everyday Joe’s, but coffee from different roasters is like beer from different breweries. It comes to a point when you have a desire to try them all. A solution on the coffee front is here.

Enter the Direct Trade Coffee Club (they wrote that nice three-point summary up there). Currently a partnership between our old friends at Intelligentsia and the Grand Rapids-based Madcap Coffee, the DTCC (just coined that one) delivers Direct Trade beans to your home every month. A little bird told me they are evaluating a few more roasters and pursuing others with hopes to top out at six total, allowing each partner to provide the beans twice a year.

“We started the Direct Trade Coffee Club to connect consumers with the finest roasters of specialty coffee who purchase coffee direct from the farmer.”

The club also provides brewing, tasting, and seed-to-cup infos on their site. Information is the key, I hear. All that info & the ordering process can be found here. A wise way to spend that Christmas money, I say.

FURTHER:

• Join the Direct Trade Coffee Club
• MadCap Coffee Company
• Intelligentsia Coffee

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Let’s keep this brief, shall we?

This month at Everyday Joe’s, we are taking part in No Words November. It is a month to use less words and see what comes out of that. Hopefully listening to each other & hearing more than we normally might. It is exciting to imagine what we could hear.

This idea has been brewing in the head of a member of the Everyday Joe’s family for some time now, inspired by some of the themes of Sleeping At Last’s latest album Storyboards. For the month of November, there will not be any music played on the house speakers that contains words. This is a practical application of the idea of No Words November, encouraging the volunteers to listen to what is happening in the building and to see what they might hear. I wonder what customers think, or if they even notice.

Here is an idea for participating in No Words November that we would like to pass on to you…

Pick one day this month to fast from unnecessary words. Do not ignore others. This is not a vow of silence, but a vow to quiet down. To listen more and see what we hear. Perhaps this one day will translate to two days and then a week and then a month and then it could keep going. I think we may love each other more through it.

The coffee house is a place meant for conversation and relationship. But, we often sit on the other side of the table, calculating what we will say next. Let’s listen more.

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