The Elephants Can Save Us
I and some friends got drunk one night and decided to we could either start another whiskey company (but we most certainly would drowned in our product not profits)…so one smart ass says, “Well, as long you losers are going to try and do something with you under used brains, why not make something that is part of the future (he’s really into “Star Trek” and can’t wait for the Federation to give equality to everything …I think it is just the free everything he wants from a replicator) and build a company that is based on a great product and use profits to be socially responsible: help save the elephants and the new wave of women owned coffee farms.” I must say that he has never been so articulate and certainly not after 5 shots of slightly aged whiskey (we’re talking well whiskey that was aged in a slow moving, rusty tanker truck from a still somewhere in Tennessee .)
BUT, we did remember his mumbles the next day and I decided we should start an online coffee company (which is now named “Hello Sweetie Coffee”} and we would guarantee that $1 of every bag of coffee we sell would go to help save the elephants. And then Brittany (she is really ‘dope’ about the coffee thing and is a coffee whole seller who is now our CEO) says that there is a growing alliance of women owned coffee farms around the world (turns out in developing nations where there are limited social safety nets — NONE —and that these farms become a safe haven for women down on their luck) and we can source our coffee from these farms…I tried to argue that we already have a great message about the elephants but she prevailed and said we can do both and people …the people who think like us …will take time to figure it out…and she had that kind of ‘stare’ that I knew meant I should just say, “Yes my friend I agree”. And I did…
So we hope to launch a functioning website in a couple of weeks …now I screwed up the logo and website thing by asking a brilliant friend to design it but then he went ‘full monty’ on another design project that was paying great money…no bad…just paying the bills…and so we have no logo and no website just a huge bag of coffee (several) coming from a woman owned coffee farm in Rwanda (we did a tasting and it was AMAZING..SOOOO GOOD….and the women who owned the farm felt sorry for us and agreed to be our first supplier because they love elephants TOOOO…)
Now if the new designer can’t find the ZEN thing soon, then I’ll be forced to rent an elephant costume and sell bags of coffee from the back of my 2003 Honda Element (which I love and won’t get rid of) in front of a friends bait shop at an intersection south of St. Augustine Florida on US #1…and it’s now 90 degrees in the middle of the day so I may not make it through August…did you read this dear Designer…
Finally on a serious note, there are more elephants being killed everyday for their tusks than there are being born. (It takes 2 years from conception to birth for a female elephant.) And so we are about a generation away from the extinction of elephants in the wild…
Next week I have a great story about bees and elephants and a fence you can help us build. Think of it as a fence that divides us but ultimately brings elephants and humans into harmony….Peace Richard
