Namanyonyi Co-op united a community

The wheels were set in motion many years ago when Thanksgiving Coffee began our work with the Ugandan Coffee Cooperative “Delicious Peace” to bring their Interfaith coffee to market. For those of you who have been following us on this unique journey, we want to share another perspective. It is an article written by an organization that understands cooperatives are run by people, and people have many ups and downs.

"We love this story of multiple faiths helping each other, moving beyond personal beliefs"

The Article For You To Read:

How A Coffee Co-op United A Community – And Was Reborn After A Leadership Crisis

More of our history with the Delicious Peace Cooperative:

2009: Delicious Peace Moves Forward

2014: A Trip To Africa

2020: Delicious Peace Coffee: A New Story

2023: Evolution of Change

Where it all began - the Delicious Peace Coffee

Entering the 25th year of End The Embargo Coffee, we find the embargo on Cuba by our government still in place. However, it is now easy to obtain a Visa to travel to Cuba on your own or via the many Social Justice Non profits and Churches that lead mission driven or curated special interest trips to the island.

Back in 1998 we teamed up with Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based nonprofit which was then, a leading proponent in favor of ending the US Cuba hostilities. Jonah Katzeff, now CEO of Thanksgiving Coffee, traveled to Cuba with Global Exchange in the late 90’s. I had complex motives for creating End the Embargo Coffee 25 years ago. My motives were not purely about Social Justice. I was a cigar judge at the time for Cigar Aficionado magazine, and I understood that the quality of Cuban cigars was based on its soil and climate as much as on the human skills that transformed fresh picked tobacco leaf and aged it, blended it, and rolled it into cigars for export. Coffee grown in Cuba I believed, would be as magnificent as their tobacco that were made into their fantastic cigars. I wanted that coffee! However, it was no secret that Thanksgiving Coffee was a supporter of the Nicaraguan revolution, and that I was a Sandinista at heart. I made many visits to Nicaragua in 1985, and in 1986 negotiated a contract to purchase 75,000 pounds of coffee for delivery to the SF/Oakland Bay Area).

America was at war with Nicaragua using unhappy Nicaraguans as it's Mercenaries. Although it was a peoples revolution, almost immediately after the Nicaraguan newspapers reported my contract, President Reagan declared an Embargo on Nicaraguan imports which included my 75,000 pounds. I was caught in the middle of US Foreign Policy. What I did is another story which solidified me as the Premier Craft Coffee Radical in America. Spoiler alert, I challenged the Reagan embargo and broke the embargo. I learned allot from that experience and fifteen years later, it informed my decision to create End The Embargo Coffee.

Coffee grown in Cuba I believed, would be as magnificent as their tobacco...

I was inspired by my experiences in Nicaragua. I wanted to do my part for the coffee farmers, and agricultural workers in Cuba. I wanted to put my stake in the ground to be the first to bring Cuban coffee to the United States. When we created the packaging for in the embargo coffee the Pope had just visited Cuba. Daniel Ortega, President and one of the nine commandants of the Nicaraguan revolutionary army (FSLN) that defeated the Samosa Dictatorship in 1979, came to meet the Pope at the airport. The Pope was not a happy Pope in the moment, and pointed and accusatory finger at the President of Nicaragua as he reached to kiss the popes ring. A photo of that moment became a poster, which became an International memorial to the Revolution. I saw one in Rwanda in the home of a coffee farmer twenty years later. I couldn’t help myself. I used it for the dark roast graphic. Che was chosen for the light roast.

It should be noted that the artist who created that likeness of Che was interviewed for an article in Business Week Magazine. He commented on the use of the image, disapproving of Seagram’s use of the image to sell vodka, but approved Thanksgiving Coffee’s use as the image representing coffee for End the Embargo. The week that publication hit the newsstands we sold 5,000 12 oz. packages.

For many years afterwards, I received quite a number of nasty letters and phone threats from Cuban immigrants living in Miami, who had, in their words, escaped Cuba to find freedom in America. They weren’t poor Cubans, but the wealthy, who had prospered as part of the pre revolution economy. I carried on an interesting dialogue with the detractors of our of our anti-embargo activism. As the Cuban political situation mellowed over time, the threats and nasty accusations slowed to a trickle.

Today, after quarter century of Che, and the Pope, being on grocery shelves, and in our online web store, we begin the process of ending our relationship with this revolutionary product line. Although the issue is still important, we just don’t have the staff to promote this product the way it needs to be promoted to achieve its educational aims. We have not changed our politics of inclusion and social justice, nor have we changed our opinion about whether or not the embargo should stand or fall. We believe that the Cuban embargo is an inappropriate way to achieve peace between nations. This embargo, as all embargoes do, impacts the poorest of the Cuban citizens. It does not impact wealthy Cubans in Cuba. Che and the Pope now, just sit patiently on store shelves looking out quietly as people pass by and choose other coffees that have a more current pressing social, environmental, and economic justice issues.

After a quarter century the time to retire these iconic images is for us, now. If you wish to continue to support the Cuban Cuban people and wish to see the embargo on Cuban products ended, here is the original organization that we supported which you can also support by contributing your energy and and/or financial support. They do the work that we can no longer do.

Global Exchange - Normalize Relations with Cuba

Let’s say goodbye to End the Embargo Coffee until such time when Thanksgiving Coffee Company has the employee power to give this product is due. Cuban coffee never got to the United States but Thanksgiving’s Embargo Coffee package recently got to Cuba. Photographs below show Susan Savage of the Mendocino Coast Community Healthcare District delivering Che to one of her friends in Cuba in late January 2023

End of Story

Original Post from Mara Elephant Project by Claire Bolles

Protecting Elephants and Their Habitats Across the Greater Mara Ecosystem

It is World Female Ranger Week, a time set aside to highlight the important conservation work undertaken by women on the frontline. The first ever World Female Ranger Award winner Caren Yegon just completed a month-long LEAD Ranger training at the Wildlife Works facility in Rukinga, Kenya. (Our cause coffee partner) The Mara Elephant Project  / Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Mau De-Snaring Unit lead ranger was joined by 13 rangers, which included nine women, from other conservation organizations for the Bush School Instructor course facilitated by both LEAD Ranger and special guest instructors.

Caren will take the skills she learned and bring them back to educate other MEP rangers. Skills like making safe drinking water in the field, using various signals to communicate when you’re lost or need to be discreet, making shelter and fire with basic supplies, navigating in the field without technology and more.

As we join other conservation organizations celebrating World Female Ranger Week, we continue our commitment to nurture a diverse and inclusive workforce thanks to your support.

A special thanks to LEAD Ranger for their commitment to nature’s first responders and to How Many Elephants for supporting World Female Ranger Week to shine a light on women like Caren.

You can send more Mara Elephant Project rangers like Caren for training in 2023, when you purchase Protect Our Elephants coffee. Support the MEP conservation heroes.

Mara Elephant Project (MEP, est. 2011) protects elephants and their habitats across the Greater Mara Ecosystem in Kenya, one of the last wildlife refuges on Earth. When poaching emerged as a threat, MEP and Kenya Wildlife Service took action to successfully combat it. Today, the drastic expansion of the human footprint is causing habitat loss and conflict. Our Maasai male and female rangers are working to build a better future for their families by protecting elephants and their habitats for generations to come.

Protect Our Elephants Coffee supports the conservation of precious wildlife and habitats in Kenya.

$1.50 per 12 oz bag and $5.00 per 5-pound bag are donated to the Mara Elephant Project. Learn more about Mara Elephant Project at www.maraelephantproject.org.

I had an elephant friend when I was 10 years old. She lived at the Bronx Zoo and growing up, I lived five minutes from the Zoo. I got to know her by visiting once a week until I went off to college eight years later. On my early visits I noticed an elephant food dispenser near her outside enclosure and for five cents people could buy these little pellets of elephant food that came in 2-ounce packets. A person would empty the contents into their palm and offer them up to the nearest elephant who would extend their trunk to your palm and suck them up and then blow them into their mouth. I just couldn't spend a nickel on 2 ounces of smelly pellets when I could get two pretzels at the candy store on my way to the Zoo, but I could stop at my uncle’s fruit and vegetable store, which was on the way, and get a free bag of overripe bananas, rubbery carrots and a pound of fresh roasted peanuts which she loved and ate shells and all.

I visited with her until I went off to college after spending a long day saying goodbye. As I was about to leave, it was beginning to get close to closing time, the Zookeepers came out and asked me if I wanted to give Helen a hug. They took me into the enclosure and encouraged me to approach Helen and to talk to her while I moved forward toward her. She lumbered over to me and I touched her flank. I had only touched her trunk up to that time. I put the side of my face up against her rear flank. She was warm and her skin was tough. I was 18 , they told me she was 36.

After a short while her “keepers” signaled it was time to go. I know I was at a loss for words, How do you say goodbye to an Elephant? Turning my back I began to walk toward the enclosure's door when I was stopped by the full weight of Helen’s trunk on my shoulder and wrapped slightly around my neck. I stopped in my tracks. “Don’t be afraid” the keeper said ,”she is saying goodbye”. I turned around to find her big dark eyes looking right into me and I know I cried in that moment and all the way home. When I came home from College 4 years later she was gone.