{"id":2778,"date":"2008-09-26T06:49:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-26T06:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/the-best-part-of-waking-up.html"},"modified":"2008-09-26T06:49:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-26T06:49:00","slug":"the-best-part-of-waking-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/the-best-part-of-waking-up.html","title":{"rendered":"The best part of waking up"},"content":{"rendered":"

For some months now, The Anchoress has been extolling the virtues<\/a> of Mystic Monk Coffee — she sent some to me for a birthday present, and I have to agree: it’s superb! — but now it looks like the monks have some competition. <\/p>\n

Some Franciscan nuns are getting into the act<\/a>: <\/p>\n

A Pittsburgh community of Franciscan sisters has entered the world of private\u2013label coffee brands, aiding both their own aging sisters and poor Honduran coffee farmers in the process.<\/p>\n

<\/a>They launched their own coffee label \u2014 Franciscan Blend \u2014 earlier this spring, using fair\u2013trade beans imported from the Central American country.<\/p>\n

The sisters will use the income to help support their elderly and infirm sisters. And through fair trade, the farmers are guaranteed a stable, fair price for their products, giving them economic security. The farmers are organized into cooperatives which link them directly to coffee importers.<\/p>\n

Franciscan Blend is available in 12\u2013ounce bags of regular medium blend, with decaf to be added soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel it\u2019s a win\u2013win situation by marketing Franciscan Blend coffee,\u201d said Sister J. Lora Dambroski, U.S. provincial minister for the order, the Sisters of St. Francis of the Providence of God.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe, the sisters, are able to assist Latin American farmers by purchasing our coffee through a fair\u2013trade cooperative. In turn, the congregation is able to use the net proceeds to help further our ministries as well as care for our elderly and infirm sisters,\u201d she told the Pittsburgh Catholic, newspaper of the Pittsburgh Diocese.<\/p>\n

Sister Lora also is president\u2013elect of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which actively supports the use of fair\u2013trade products.<\/p>\n

Fair trade ensures that farmers and artisans in developing countries receive fair prices, giving them \u2013\u2013 rather than corporate retail and wholesale interests \u2013\u2013 more of the retail price.<\/p>\n

The idea for Franciscan Blend came from the sisters\u2019 development director, Nick Rodi.<\/p>\n

\u201cSister Lora and the council were all very much in favor of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He arranged with an artist\u2013friend to design the label and contracted with Arbuckle\u2019s Coffee Co. in Verona to sell it and O\u2019Neill Coffee Co. in West Middlesex to roast the beans.<\/p>\n

Arbuckle\u2019s has been \u201cvery, very cooperative with us,\u201d Rodi said.<\/p>\n

The sisters have already sold some 20 percent of their annual goal of 2,000 bags of coffee, he estimated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a good response. Everyone who bought it said it\u2019s really good tasting, and it\u2019s really fresh,\u201d he said, noting that it is packaged two days after roasting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can visit the link<\/a> for more information how to order the coffee. <\/p>\n

And for another taste, and another religious order, try the Trappists. I always go ga-ga over the java from the Andes in Venezuela<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some months now, The Anchoress has been extolling the virtues of Mystic Monk Coffee — she sent some to me for a birthday present, and I have to agree: it’s superb! — but now it looks like the monks have some competition. Some Franciscan nuns are getting into the act: A Pittsburgh community of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-and-that"],"yoast_head":"\nThe best part of waking up - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/the-best-part-of-waking-up.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The best part of waking up - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For some months now, The Anchoress has been extolling the virtues of Mystic Monk Coffee — she sent some to me for a birthday present, and I have to agree: it’s superb! — but now it looks like the monks have some competition. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}