Giving Back to the Las Vegas Community! We give a dollar from every pound of coffee we sell to non-profits for education.
One of Café do Paraíso’s core values, in addition to Quality and Sustainability, is Giving Back. And we’ve made a commitment to donate $1 for every pound of coffee sold to non-profits for education; fifty cents to your local U.S. state and fifty cents to the country of origin where the coffee is from. After a lot of research and discussions we decided to use the money raised in Nevada to fund outdoor garden classrooms in Las Vegas schools with the help of a local Las Vegas non-profit called Green Our Planet.
Green Our Planet is a non-profit organization founded by documentary filmmakers and conservationists Kim MacQuarrie and Ciara Byrne in March 2013. It is a crowd funding website (www.greenourplanet.org) that raises money for green projects locally, nationally, and worldwide. In Las Vegas, Green Our Planet uses its crowdfunding platform to make their Outdoor Garden Classroom Program possible, a program that raises money for and installs vegetable teaching gardens in K-12 schools across the Clark County School District. Since March of 2013, Green Our Planet has funded and helped install 20 gardens at schools around the Las Vegas valley. It is in the process of installing, with its partner Garden Farms, 20-30 more gardens.
The Outdoor Garden Classrooms allow students hands-on learning in a variety of subjects, including math, science, nutrition, and conservation. In many studies across the United States teaching in school gardens has been proven to increase test scores and help students understand where their food comes from as well as lead to an increase in the consumption of vegetables by students and an increase in awareness about environmental issues.
We believe strongly in the power education has to change the world, and garden classrooms have been shown to provide many varied and sustainable benefits to students through hands-on learning. In addition to applied science and math benefits, gardens also educate students about healthy eathing habits, supply chains, farmer’s markets, and community organizing. Gardens also build the capacity and foundation for more garden farms to be developed in Nevada as it also educates parents and anyone who learns about them. In Nevada we have a large food insecure population and gardens have a sustained and direct impact on this very important issue. It’s for all these reasons and more that we’ve teamed up with Green Our Planet as the recipient of our proceeds for Nevada non-profit donations for education.
