It is our hope that as we connect with an ever increasing number of people choosing to live seriously as coffee consumers.   People choosing to buy coffee's that have traceability to the origin.   People choosing to shop at local farmers markets.   People inviting friends to share a slowly brewed coffee together.  People visiting local farms and understanding the importance of a connection between a person and a place.  People learning to challenge their local restaurants and grocery stores to support small scale artisans and stop our catastrophic practice of shipping consumables from one state to another.....that, in this process, we will hold our truths to be self evident and make sure that, we, in turn, are fostering connections that likewise shed light to places where might otherwise be forgotten. 

This weekend we did just that.   

We are extremely excited to announce that our partnership with Wonder Root has officially been kicked off!  In the coming weeks, our Wonder Root Blend will be appearing in some of the finest culinary and coffee establishments in Atlanta.  

To start we are selling bags through Octane, Park Grounds, and the soon to open bakery "Dough."   We are hopeful that more businesses in Atlanta will soon sign on. following the lead of these known establishments. For every bag of this blend we package and deliver, a portion of the sales will go directly to supporting this amazing non-profit and thereby help bring together community and art like has never been done before in the Atlanta vicinity.  

This collaboration has a special significance of me, for before I entered into the world of coffee I worked as a social worker and as a social worker one of my major job responsibilities was to help connect youth with community resources.  What I found in trying to help these youth, was a scarcity of exciting community based projects, a sad dirth taking heed to the embodiment of the age old expression that "it takes a village to raise a child."  

I can remember countless days driving children from dilapidated group homes to the under funded and the uninspiring resources of the city.   When these children would look me in the eye and say "Are you serious?"  I couldn't help but to feel the same shame and outrage that they felt, and righteously so.  For we need not only non-profits and community resources, but moreover non-profits that get it.  For it was these looks, that still inspire me to try to make this business more than just a coffee and money operation.   These looks that keep mine own eyes open seeking to support non-profits that are expressive and adaptive of the needs of our time and youth.  

To be in support of Wonder Root is one of the thousand faces of this operation.   Sometimes 1000faces needs to be more than just great coffee.   A phrase I have grown to love is: sometimes the ship is more than just the sea.  There are blind parts of the system that connect to the immediate, and though they might not be straight-forward and obvious....business owners large and small NEED to be supportive of these parts. We at 1000faces spend so much of our days focusing on expressing the terrior of a coffee, that there just have to be some nights when we must venture into the soil of our own backyard and plant the seeds we ask the farmers we collaborate with to sow...in order for us to keep our game tight.

If we fail, because we undercut success at the feet of greatness or because instead of opening seven chain stores we spent time focusing on seven non-profits or because instead of buying cheap and selling high we chose to buy high and sell with a sense that our business could embrace a sense of the sacred, then the way I see it...instead of big bank accounts we will have big hope to share.   A big hope that fosters stories to tell our grand children around camp-fires.   Stories not of a failed American dream, about and of borrowing and franchising, but of American dream about and of a destiny manifested.  A realized act of giving and independence.  A shared truth of resources expanded and community expressed.    A hope grand enough, that after all is said and done, those we once looked after, with flashlights shining brightly, will in turn, do the same when the men in white smocks come and haul the espresso machine away... 

There a great line in the new Yeasayer song 'Tightrope.'  I've been playing it on repeat all day.  It goes a little something like this:   

So you're wishing that you never did
All the embarrassing things you've done
And you're wishing you could set it right
And you're wishing you could stay the night
But then I go again, wishing never solved a problem
If you wanna get it big time, go ahead and get it get it big time

So I think I can solve all my problems by myself
Nevermind, nevermind, nevermind, nevermind
And you think you can solve all your problems by yourself
Nevermind, nevermind, nevermind, nevermind

Oh, give it, give it, give it, give it, give it
Until you just can't give no more
Oh, give it, give it, give it, give it, give it
Until you just can't give no more

Oh, give it, give it, give it, give it, give it
Until you just can't give no more
Oh, give it, give it, give it, give it, give it
Until you just can't give no more

END by BM