Green Mountain Cafe – The Green Mountain Coffee Blog

We talk a lot about food-security on the blog. Most of this is about the work we’re doing with coffee-growing communities at source. As we all know though, hunger exists in our domestic communities as well.

As part of our Domestic Outreach, we make grants in our employees communities. In June, the employees at our Knoxville, TN facility approved a grant for $25,000 over three years to the Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee.

The grant will support the Food for Kids program in three schools. The program provides backpacks with nutritious, non-perishable food for school children to eat after-school or on weekends. The food is delivered to the schools on a regular basis. Inadequate nutrition contributes to behavioral problems, overall health and future likelihood of poverty. This program helps provide nutrition so kids can perform at school and prevent future health problems.

You can find Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee on Facebook to receive updates on their programs and services.

No Comments »

Rick Peyser, Director of Social Advocacy and Coffee Community Outreach recently attended the Sustainable Agriculture Partnerships Conference in San Francisco, CA. While there he spoke about the work we’ve been doing around food security in regions where we purchase coffee.

As we’ve discussed before on our blog, through research we discovered that there are coffee farming families that experience a few months every year where they have to alter their diets or borrow money to feed their families. These are called “los meses flacos” or “the thin months”. We see a direct link between the quality of coffee and the quality of the farmer’s life and work with these communities to find solutions.

Below is a video of Rick Peyser being interviewed at the conference about this work by Martin Smith, CEO of JustMeans.

1 Comment »

Well, it’s been a few days since our River Cleanup Week wrapped up. Liz Dohrman, our Enterprise Volunteerism Specialist and Paul Comey, VP of Environmental Affairs spent all week on the river, 12 hours a day and are just starting to dry out.

This year’s River Cleanup saw the largest amount of employee turnout with 153 employees volunteering throughout the week and contributing over 700 CAFE-hours (CAFE is our company sponsored volunteer program – click here for more info).

The River is over 120 tires cleaner, less one stove, one recliner, one loveseat, one toilet, a couple car axels, and much much regular household trash. A big thank you to Umiak Outdoor Outfitters and specifically our guide John Wolfe for his exuberance and expertise on the Winooski River.
See the sampling of pictures below of the cleanup throughout the week.

GMCR Employees - Rain or Shine they're committed!

First you need a couch....

...And then to finish the room off you need a recliner!

An epic waterfall shoot while cleaning up Bolton Dam

Loading the afternoon's bounty into the truck

The aftermath of the cleanup

So Many Tires

2 Comments »

Liz and me pulling our tire from the river!

We’re closing out Day 4 of our Vermont River Cleanup week on the Winooski River. Although we had some rain in the beginning of the week,the skies have been clear enough for us to be on the river morning and afternoon.

We’ve already hauled some interesting objects from the river – (a stove, car axle, bicycles). I even got a tire of my own (look at that proudface!) Each day we’ve had around 40 employees participate, which is the largest turnout for the clean up ever! We even made it into the Burlington Free Press today with a picture of our floatilla coming down the river!

We’re keeping our paddles in the river throughout tomorrow and next week we’ll have an update with all our totals.

The stove comes out of the River!

Green Mountain Coffee Employees pulling Axel out of Winooski River

2 Comments »

Green Mountain Coffee employees pull a couch from the banks of Winooski River in 2009.

August is here – which brings mixed feelings in Vermont. August is one of my favorite months, but also signals the slow close of our short summer. Another earmark of August is that its River Cleanup time. As we announced this morning in a Press Release, Green Mountain Coffee has joined a nationwide effort to keep America’s waterways clean for a 6th year. As a sponsor of American Rivers’ National River Cleanup™, employee volunteers will use paid time off to clean a section of the Winooski River this whole week (August 2-6^th, 2010).

This is our largest Company organized volunteer event in Vermont – and employees look forward to it throughout the year. Last year, over 125 GMCR employees participated in the River Cleanup, and the group removed 194 tires and one ton of trash from the Winooski River. Additional GMCR employee river cleanup efforts recently took place

Liz Dohrman, our Volunteerism Specialist coordinated this year’s cleanup, with well over 100 employees signed up for various shifts and tasks throughout the week. Paul Comey, VP of Environmental Affairs, has been involved with the cleanup since it’s inception and revels in the opportunity to whip out his kayak. water-shoes and waterproof -camera. As Paul puts it “Clean water is important for both healthy communities and a good cup of coffee, so we are happy to support the River Cleanup for the sixth year in a row.”

Green Mountain Coffee Employees pulling garbage from Winooski River 2009

We’re also working again with the folks from Umiak, who help us out with canoes for the cleanup and a guide to navigate the waters of the Winooski.  Others from Corporate Social Responsibility, Facilities, Production and a host of other departments all work to make this event a success.

If you’re interested in learning more about the National River Cleanup, visit the American Rivers’ website for ideas on how to coordinate your own event.

To learn more about our company volunteer program, CAFE, visit the Employee Volunteerism section on our Corporate Social Responsibility website.

Learn more about the history and other events on the Winooski River, check out the Friends of The Winooski River.

No Comments »

This time of year is one of the busiest for our Corporate Social Responsibility programs. The nice weather inspires our employees to volunteer for non-profits using their 52 hours of company sponsored time-off (we call this program CAFE).

Another program that gets a lot attention during the summer months is our product donations. Product donations are a great way to supplement events – whether for brewing or for auction items. We think it’s a great way to have folks sample our coffees while supporting communities throughout the country. The coffee we donate is Fair Trade Organic – so folks can feel good about it at their events.

For more information on product donations visit http://www.gmcr.com/productdonations

No Comments »

Every quarter a group of Green Mountain Coffee employees meet to discuss our Coffee-Growing Community Outreach

Groundbreaking of organic garden (photo from Pueblo a Pueblo blog)

grants. It is a great way to learn about the different organizations and regions our company touches. At a recent meeting I got to learn about a project we supported in partnership with Pueblo a Pueblo in Santiago Atitalan, Guatemala to start an organic garden at Escuela Mixta Rural de Panabaj  school.  They broke ground in early February and were sowing the first seeds by the end of the month (read about it on their blog)!

Pueblo a Pueblo, an organization that helps to improve the lives of indigenous Guatemalans, describes the project below:

“The area surrounding Santiago Atitalan is among one of the the poorest regions in Guatemala. In a region where many households live on less than a dollar per day and do not own livestock, families face severe seasonal food shortages, known as “los Meses Flacos” (the thin months).

Pueblo a Pueblo has worked in this region since 2005 and has been involved in school nutrition and providing healthy

Planting in school garden (photo from Pueblo a Pueblo blog)

meals to needy children. Our new partnership with Green Mountain Coffee only adds to this effort bringing life-changing aid to child nutrition and families who need our help the most. Our shared goal is to improve nutrition and strengthen

food security.

Through a two year pilot project grant, we seek to teach 500 children in the Escuela Mixta Rural de Panabaj about organic gardening and basic nutrition. We will help the school community increase food supplies through education and diversification of crops to include foods with higher nutritional values.

Garden after Tropical Storm Agatha (photo from Pueblo a Pueblo blog)

Their food security efforts teach children and their families ways to avoid food shortages and increase nutrition, while our development projects also support educational opportunities and improve family health.”

Although the garden and the area were affected by Tropical Storm Agatha in May (read about the storm and damage), repairs continue and the garden is recovering.

Read more about our Coffee-Community Outreach on our Corporate Social Responsibility website, http://www.brewingabetterworld.com.

1 Comment »